[i]Some people claim that inflated military power and technology have no future when put up against basic human will. This can been seen in practice when some determined, drooling lunatic blows up an expensive M1126 Stryker with a washing machine timer and an old surplus artillery round. The Ho Chi Minh trail was often pretty much people physically pushing "cargo bicycles" around. Prolly scares the piss out General Dynamics and the rest of the Military Industrial Complex. It seems like these days Europe is bored with militarism and is pursuing diplomacy instead. Anyway, let em retire the A-10. Noone is stupid enough to attack us directly (China's historical secret weapon has been the human wave attack) and we've driven them all to a guerilla war anyway. That would probably make for a really boring FPS game though. Forgive the rant.[/i]
Such things are only said by people with no understanding of military science.
Technology rarely makes you IMMUNE to attacks by a determined (particularly suicidal) opponent. Technology acts as a force multiplier and/or a casualty divisor. It doesn't mean that your soldiers can't be killed, it means that it may take 200 enemies to kill one of ours, instead of 2 or 3. (Of course, our modern, risk-averse media society acts as a casualty MULTIPLIER, where 1, 2, or 5 friendly deaths generate more anguish and media coverage than 10, 20, or 500 deaths 50+ years ago.)
Your 'drooling lunatic' may detonate his shell and flip a Stryker, but he's probably extraordinarily lucky if he even killed one soldier, while in the same span of time for his preparation, more than 100 of his buddies have died in US raids, failed ambushes, sniper actions, and to US patrols.
Does 100:1 casualty ratio mean we win? Not automagically. But the last 15 years of combat (and really, even since Vietnam) have shown that enemy forces cannot defeat the US military in direct action, it HAS to be a combination of direct action, propoganda, and a loss of will on our part.
Even 'Blackhawk Down' was only a botched raid; the casualties, while tragic, (18 killed) were militarily insignificant. The failure on the Allied forces part was
a) an unwillingness to unlease the full military force available, due to the 'unacceptable' level of collateral damage
b) a criminal level of hubris, NOT having a fallback plan (particularly including armored backup units).