"The arguments regarding foreign produced military arms have already been made, and quite well. You can argue the point as much as you want to waste the time doing so, but the truth is that the AR was chosen over the AK for MANY reasons, not solely country of design or origin. Its more accurate, easier for a wide variety of people to shoot, and has myriad other features making it a better choice for our forces. There will always be AK/AR fanboys by the dozens, but for many reasons already stated, the AR makes more sense for our military than the AK ever could. Its not a matter of pride, its about picking the best tool for the job, and I think ovewrall, the US military has done a pretty good job in its selection. I think the poiont I made previously....about military forces who previously equipped soldiers with AKMs backing away from that choice as time goes on, speaks volumes. The AKM is being phased out, while the AR series is still going strong and gaining in popularity. It doesn't make sense that the superior gun would be waning in popularity while its inferior competition was sweeping the world......does it?"
I disagree that the other countries' military forces switching from AK to AR is in any way related to each platform's capabilities. U.S. and Russia are the worlds largest small arms suppliers and not solely due to profit but also due to small arms shipments being used as a political tool. So whener a small country chooses an ally of the two, the ally gladly supplies them with all sorts of military hardware, including small arms. A good recent example of this would be Georgia, a small country near the border of Russia. U.S. was very eager to "democratize"" (read stick it into Russia's craw) Georgia so it sent its military advisors along with huge parties of... M4 carbines for the Georgian army. Georgia happened to have a war with Russia in 2008 for related reasons. I have read reports of Georgian soldiers getting rid of their M4 carbines as soon as they found a suitable AK replacement. Their claim was that m4 was harder to use. This makes sense to me considering previously Georgian army used AKs. So for me the statement that M4 is easier to use is plausible at best. Tell that to a soldier that has to take the m4 apart for cleaning every day in harsh/battle environments versus an African child soldier that can field-strip an AK with his eyes closed but never does b/c the AK will work regardless. So ease of use... meh. As for the waning popularity, it is still 100 million AKs vs. 8 million M16 types arms produced. Obviously there's more demand for one of them.
Also, noone said that AK can't be modified/improved before adoption. After all U.S. military does not use AR-15 with aluminum/steel barrels, 1/12 twist, unlined chambers, etc like Eugene Stoner envisioned it.