You won't be able to gauge them until they're actually engaged in a war. If you don't actually test your military and equipment under actual combat conditions you'll never know how they'll actually fare in a war.

Everyone thought Russia would steamroll Ukraine. Now the war is going on for four years already.

Everyone thought the US would just steamroll Iran and the 1 day 'Major Combat Operation' already has turned into 'not-a-war' that'll last until September or maybe even longer.

In the end the quality of your military equipment is far less important than how quickly you can replace that equipment. Logistics and production win wars in the end. WW1 and WW2 are the best (recent) examples of that.