Moondong I dont think the tech gap was closed by innovation. The americans lost a stealth fighter plane during the bombing campaign over Serbia. The Serbian airforce kept sending up their MIGs until they brought a stealth bomber down and then no more MIGs were sent into battle. The Russians then duly had access to the shot down plane.
Likewise in the aptly named Abbottabad the Chinese had access to the stealth helicopter that crashed with the raid that took out Bin Laden.
I do remember an earlier argument about the new fighter plane I am pretty certain at the time the Russian MIG Flanker flown by competent Ruskies would take out the suped up F18.
