The quality and productivity of folks who design and build weapons is measured by their inverse distance from Ground Zero.
The point of the article is that Soviet/Russian weapons systems are touted by them, our media, and even many Freepers as being far superior and more deadly, and our weapons systems are held up as flawed, useless, and overpriced when in reality, theirs often fail in head to head competition with ours.
Training, tactics and execution do go a long way towards that record, but the reality is the Soviet/Russian stuff is not the stuff of legends, and in the hands of our military, would probably do well.
That said, I will take US military hardware over Soviet/Russian hardware the vast majority of the time.
Could we do better at obtaining better bang for the buck for our tax dollars spent and get more capable systems? Absolutely, 100% that answer is yes. And I know that old saw about quantity having a quality all of its own, but when it comes to money spent, how much is too much when American blood is on the line, and battles/wars are won and lost on the basis of that money spent?
Like you, I would like to see us do better at the “money spent”.