Excellent points and also germane to that big rich military. When you have floods of cash and can complain about the adequacy of a joint strike fighter that one line item costs more than your small countries entire military budget. Your example small nations have little in common with the vast military out there.

Another aspect is that of winning. The entire position of NATO nations in particular and the United States specifically are on winning. The current critique from Gentile and others of COIN is that of "what does a win look like?" The UN position in the charter that war can only exist between two nation states inadequately expresses through true span of conflict and that of lessons larger nations could learn.

There is something to be said about on the cheap, highly flexible, swarm tactic, volunteer militaries capability. It is hardly studied. In the United States it is a side line of intellectual thinking. The principle of not winning, but not losing, as a form of conflict is almost completely ignored in the intellectual thought of western nations. Which creates strategic seams exploited on almost a daily basis.