These shortcomings are well-known to the US military, which is why most of what they do now is send special forces to train and equip local militias and separatists, followed up with NGOs to make them seem like oppressed freedom fighters.
Why would they stop doing this when it worked so well in Afghanistan against the Soviets? All major powers know that direct confrontation can only end in disaster for all sides so even their most bellicose hawks avoid such a confrontation like the plague. The metagame nowadays is to undermine rivals via domestic insurgency and proxy. It’s been so long since any major powers have had a P2P conflict that it’s genuinely unknown territory what will happen, no matter how much they lean on war games and simulation exercises to try and anticipate the course of such conflicts. With the terrifying weapons now currently at the disposal of all sides, the relative blackhole of real world data represents a deluge of horrifying possibilities, the biggest spectre of which is easily a renewed possibility of nuclear Armageddon.
Why would they stop doing this when it worked so well in Afghanistan against the Soviets? All major powers know that direct confrontation can only end in disaster for all sides so even their most bellicose hawks avoid such a confrontation like the plague. The metagame nowadays is to undermine rivals via domestic insurgency and proxy. It’s been so long since any major powers have had a P2P conflict that it’s genuinely unknown territory what will happen, no matter how much they lean on war games and simulation exercises to try and anticipate the course of such conflicts. With the terrifying weapons now currently at the disposal of all sides, the relative blackhole of real world data represents a deluge of horrifying possibilities, the biggest spectre of which is easily a renewed possibility of nuclear Armageddon.