Chernobyl and the clusterfuck around it had far more to do with the USSR breaking up than the Gulf War did. Because the west had nothing to do with it, and it broke the internal trust between Moscow and the other SSRs.
In fact, you are the first person I've ever seen claim US performance in the Gulf War had any impact on the USSR breaking up.
I'm not saying it pushed the USSR to break up. That was already pretty much inevitable. I'm saying it killed the chance of any soviets trying a last-ditch 'death or glory' military offensive.
Try 1:1 against a competent first-world military. Frankly, I see Russian "successes" in Ukraine as more impressive than what US achieved in Iraq.
...So are
you not familiar with the history of American military performance?
In every single war the US has fought since the Civil War, it has inflicted disproportionate losses on every enemy. The Spanish-American War, WWI, WWII, Korean War, Vietnam War, both Iraq Wars, Afghanistan War. Every enemy the US has fought, regardless of what size of military they have or what level of technology, the US has been better at killing them, than they are at killing us.
Now, I'd certainly say that the increasing politicization of the military has caused its combat performance and capability to be degraded, but it'd have to drop quite a bit before it would fall to the level of expecting 1:1 performance.
And in all seriousness, who exactly is going to perform to a similar level?
The Russians clearly were a paper tiger for conventional conflict. The Communist Chinese haven't won a war since their civil war ended, and they're notorious for emphasizing indoctrination over proper military training. Iran might have a better military than either of those, but not by much, and lacking in size too. Other nations we're on a rival or hostile stance to have even more pitiful and pathetic militaries.
When it comes to allied/friendly nations purely for theoretical purposes, the British have a reasonably formidable military, but it's shrunk a
ton, the Aussies might match us on quality of men, but they don't have the budget for training and equipment, the NZ's don't have a big enough military to matter, the Canadians likewise...
Outside the British Commonwealth, the German military has been deliberately left to neglect, the French have a decent military, but
not a peer in equipment or training to the US, much less size, Spain and Italy are at
best at the level of the French, and that's about it for western Europe.
Eastern Europe, the currently-demonstrated level of Ukraine is probably the best that can be expected, but even if you go a level above that, none of them would be able to keep the US from establishing complete aerospace supremacy, and after that, the only question is 'are you willing to keep getting slaughtered for twenty years in order to just outlast the US, and do you have a neigboring nuclear power willing to shelter you?'
...About the only nation with a military record comparable to that of the US would be Israel. In that one hypothetical case, comparable losses inflicted by similar-sized formations might be reasonable. Even there though, the US military could use superior numbers to establish complete aerospace supremacy and use that and numerical advantage on the ground to
still inflict disproportionate losses.
Yes, the US military capabilities in decline. It almost always does while there's a Democrat in the White House. The question is, who exactly is supposed to be able to perform at something approaching our level in the first place?
This isn't the 1980's, where the world is divided between two great powers. This isn't even the 1930's, where it's divided between six, with a number of mid-sized powers that can compete. It certainly isn't the 1900's where there's closer to a dozen.
Maybe in another two decades, if all the signs of impending doom for the Chinese economy prove false, and they can continue their economic and military build-up uninterrupted, we'll be in a multipolar world. Maybe if the Democrats manage to
completely wreck the US economy and/or spark a civil war, it'll happen before then. Maybe India's continuing growth will manage to make it into the other pole in a decade or two.
For now though, there is no competitor, economically or military, in size
or quality.