With conventional warfare it is not a level playing field. Nations like the US have better technology and wealth to support a large military.
However what about cyberwarfare, are most wealthy and middle income nations pretty much on the same playing field, or do nations like the US have capabilities nations like Iran do not?
I recall in the Snowden leaks he mentioned one tech the US had where a USB drive could be plugged into a PC, and someone within 7 miles or so could use that drive to hack into the computer system. This would get around PC systems disconnected from the internet and is supposedly how the US & Israel used the Stuxnet virus against Iran. I don’t know if other nations have this technology, or if it is just something we had. So I assume it probably isn’t a level playing field, but I don’t know.
We’re well past the stage where a lone hacker can accomplish much of anything. Stuxnet was a major application, of the sort that it takes a division of a major software company to produce. Very few countries have the resources to make something like that.
And even if we were still in the days when a lone hacker could make a difference, it’s not like every country has the same number of those. Countries with higher population, or greater exposure to computers, are naturally going to have more. And they won’t necessarily work for the country they were born in: Depending on their motivation, they might choose to work for whoever’s the closest ideological match to them, or whomever pays them the most.
Why would it be any more of a level playing field than the civilian computer & software industry? Some countries obviously have better technology & infrastructure for software development than others.