In an April 1976 interview, Gen. George S. Brown, then the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, sarcastically dismissed the British military, stating, “All they’ve got are generals, admirals and bands.” Less than a half-dozen years later, Britain’s victory over Argentina in the Falklands War demonstrated that the U.K.’s forces amounted to something rather more than just senior officers and marching bands, and for that matter, troops on parade and aircraft flyovers.

Yet Brown’s point about bands providing little evidence of military prowess has some validity, and the same is true of military parades.

Soviet Russia’s annual May Day parades were impressive enough, but they concealed the reality that the Red Army was far less capable than its displays appeared to indicate. Moscow’s continuing May Day parades likewise have masked its military’s shortcomings, as Russian performance in the Ukrainian War, especially during its earlier phases, has amply demonstrated.

The same might well be said of the massive Chinese military parade that just took place on the occasion of China’s 80th anniversary of the defeat of Japan and the end of World War II.

The parade was certainly impressive, featuring all three elements of China’s strategic nuclear triad, in addition to supersonic........

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