“Let me put it this way,” said one senior Pentagon official of America’s standing in the world. “Who would you switch places with? Seriously, who would you switch places with?”

It’s a stunning shift in tone for a department that in August ended a 20-year war in Afghanistan with a chaotic withdrawal as an ascendant Taliban returned to power. Even though the U.S. military has not played the primary role in the American response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, senior Pentagon officials are quick to tout the still-unfolding war as proof of America’s economic, diplomatic and military strength…

The success of U.S. and NATO-trained Ukrainian forces has also bolstered the Pentagon’s confidence following the embarrassing collapse of U.S.-trained militaries in Iraq and Afghanistan over the last decade. The Ukrainian military’s will to fight and ability to inflict heavy losses on larger and more technologically advanced Russian force has taken many at the Pentagon by surprise.

“I think Ukraine has been able to tie the Russians in knots in large part because of what we’ve been able to do to help them since 2014,” the senior defense official said, adding that the failures of Afghan forces “might” have caused U.S. officials to underestimate Ukrainian troops.