one of history’s great ironies is that every person who’s studied Ancient Greece has had this exact same reaction upon visiting Greece for the first time. the Ancient Romans were so annoyed by this that they forced the Greeks to reenact their old epic histories for tourists
People look at the SR-71 and B-2 and assume the government must have technology today that would melt our brains.
I suspect the opposite.
Those aircraft came from an era willing to spend obscene money, accept failure and give small teams the authority to solve impossible problems.
Since then, 51 major defense contractors became five. Procurement became a moat. Regulation became an incumbent advantage.
The companies meant to be challenged learned how to out lobby, out wait and out comply the challengers.