A lot of this is because during the Cold War, the Soviets couldn't keep up. While quantity as a quality of it's own, so does overwhelming the enemy with a technological edge. The fact that the coalition so totally and overwhelmingly destroyed Iraq's air defences (that had relatively state of the art soviet kit and was very densely deployed) in Gulf War is case in point. There are reports that came out after the USSR's collapse about how horrified the Soviets were about how successful the stealth, jamming, and targeting of the air defences were (among other lop-sided technical advantages).
This is now shifting as the Chinese can technologically keep up and asymmetric warfare means smaller nation states can overwhelm with "just good enough" to make the economic calculations different.
This is now shifting as the Chinese can technologically keep up and asymmetric warfare means smaller nation states can overwhelm with "just good enough" to make the economic calculations different.