nor do we do war all that well. We produce a lot of neat stuff...

The Europeans were for centuries more bellicose than we were or are today -- we simply seem more bellicose to them (and to our Europhiles and our own intelligentsia) in comparison to Europe today.

That is not empirically verifiable -- I'm suspicion of most things that are -- but I have run it by few people and 99% agree (actually, all seven agreed but my wife is never gonna give me 100% on anything).