[rmlew]

American-trained ARVN did drop the ball against the Soviet-trained NVA
I'll grant you that one. I'm surprised you didn't bring up the Chinese civil war.
As did American-trained ROK's against the Soviet-trained NKPA
We barely trained the ROK forces and they were poorly equiped. The same was not true for the NKPA invasion force.
Note that the Soviet-trained Syrians almost overran the Golan in 1973.
REally bad example. They had a 5 to 1 advantage, the element of surprise, newer equipment, night fighting capabilities, temporary air superiority, and the Israeli Brigade held the 3 armored divisions. The Syrians soldiers may die well, but their officers flee.

[Zhang Fei]

I'm surprised you didn't bring up the Chinese civil war.

During the Sino-Japanese War, the Nationalists spent a decade fighting the Japanese and lost 1.4m dead. The Communists - who lost 100K dead - spent most of that time claiming credit for fighting the Japanese while mainly arming and training for the post-war hostilities to come. It's no surprise they beat the Nationalists, who had lost some of their best men to the Japanese. Ultimately, the Communists had Stilwell to thank for their Civil War victory, given that Stilwell decided he was going to win the war in the Pacific using Nationalist troops, even while the Communists were playing the long game of pitting one enemy against another.

[Zhang Fei]

BTW, the Israelis always had air superiority during Yom Kippur, meaning that they bombed the enemy, while the enemy almost never bombed them. What they did not have was air supremacy - they were never able to sweep the skies clean of enemy aircraft, and always ran into some resistance over enemy air space.

Yes, the Syrians were a fully mobilized force going up against stripped-down Israeli tank units because of the religious holiday. But the Turks aren't Israelis. Arab militias drove them out of the Middle East.