I find myself at a loss to think of any time in which that was the case. There have certainly been times when countries were predominantly equipped with US equipment, but just because the US gives it to you for free or at a very cut price doesn’t mean it’s the gold standard. Indeed, the US would sometimes give foreign equipment free to foreign countries if there was nothing available in the US inventory: Centurion tanks come to mind. One can say the same about Soviet equipment on the other side of the influence block.

That’s not to say, of course, that there isn’t stuff which is gold standard on occasion, but there is usually some competition on the matter. Pretty much any type of equipment, from rifle to radar to radios, have equivalents in foreign construction, sometimes a little later, but not necessarily worse. After all, if American stuff were gold standard, you wouldn’t necessarily see the German Military today armed with G-16 rifles, Leopard 2 Tanks, Eurofighter fighters, or diesel electric submarines. It’s not just national protectionism either, part of the reason that the Americans and Germans went their separate ways for tanks was because they could not agree on the specifications and capabilities of the MBT-70. US equipment is designed first and foremost to meet US needs. What suits the US military need not be the best solution for a small local force, for example.