Just like with Russia, the superpowers are not so super now that they've degenerated so far.

To be fair Russia was always like this, and they've gotten their asses handed to them in both of the world wars, totally in the first, I think they lost like 5 million, and for a long time in the second, and they probably would have lost if Hitler didn't overrule the generals and change objectives multiple times with winter approaching.

But fascists and oligarchs and their ilk are just not great at running an effective prosperous country, or at running a war. They are quite eager to start them, but like Mussolini get their asses handed to them by much smaller and less advantaged marks. Mussolini got his ass kicked in Albania after invading it, the germans had to come in and take over. Then in Ethiopia they were losing too, until they started using poison gas on everything that moved. Which was outlawed internationally after WW1, along with a range of other things like the use of shotguns, (nasty wounds, especially when you use rusty nails and broken glass instead of lead,) I forget if that's when they also banned the triangular bladed bayonets, that might have been earlier.