[nimbius]

the missile in TFA only achieved fivefold the speed of sound. Russias Avangard moves at twenty-seven times the speed of sound. thats faster than the re-entry speed for the space shuttle endeavor. it also advertises a newfound maneuverability.

Americans under-estimate their adversaries sadly quite often. when the TU95 bear first arrived during the cold war era its specifications were habitually lowballed by analysts until it appeared on radar over Canada. When the RQ710 was deployed in Iran with the same arrogant impunity, it was intercepted, landed, and dissected. heck, we spent about two decades insisting we could depose a cuban leader and just as long insisting we would "win" against the taliban.

and when the united states assumed china incapable of a cryptographic advantage, the nation summarily identified and executed more than a dozen spies thanks in part to dismissive hubris.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-china-espionage-idUSK...

the absolute worst thing you can do is dismiss a capable enemy.

[greedo]

The US also overestimates the threats from its potential adversaries quite frequently. The Soviets weren't 10ft tall, and the modern Russian military has been shown to be quite fragile in Ukraine. Perhaps military intelligence is a bit harder than posting on HN.

[tablespoon]

> The US also overestimates the threats from its potential adversaries quite frequently.

Yeah, for instance, IIRC, the F-15 (at least partially) resulted from a severe over-estimation of the capabilities of the Mig-25.