Quote Originally Posted by Steve Blair View Post
It's important to note that this technological advantage only occurred in certain conflicts and locations. What often made the difference wasn't technology so much as it was training. This is especially true of small wars waged after about 1860.
In many ways the Second World War started a permanent alteration in the Small Wars balance of power, and the Cold War cemented that change. In Asia in particular WW2, as mentioned above, permanently destroyed the myth of the white man's invincibility. On a more practical level, the widespread assistance given to local resistance movements fighting the Axis, even in very small numbers, made a huge difference: the natives learned to shoot, and learned the rudiments of irregular tactics. Once introduced to the basics they proved quite adept at improvising on their own and at spreading the knowledge.

During the Cold War both parties made extensive use of proxies, and in the process discovered an incentive to provide their proxies with arms and training, often discovering that neither arms nor training would necessarily be applied only to the goals originally pursued by those who provided them. The genie ain't going back in the bottle.