SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT - PROCEED WITH CAUTION
Why did the Republic allow the First Order to come into being? Why didn’t the Republic utterly destroy the Empire and it’s remnants? How could the Republic allow the Order to build such a destructive weapon? Why do the Republic forces still look like a bunch of rebels? In the past 20 years, the USAF has upgraded it’s fleet from F-15 fighters to F-22s. Why hasn’t the Republic upgraded the X-wing fighters? Face it, the Republic deserved to fall in the first place. It’s like our US Congress, a bunch of babies fighting instead of taking care of proper business. I guess it takes an Emperor to rule the Universe, …and make the trains arrive on time.
There are plenty of real world cases of unsavoury regimes building WMDs…
X-Wings have been upgraded, supposedly - for cinematic reasons they still look like X-Wings.
We don’t actually see any Republic forces, only Resistance, and they pretty much get obliterated by the Starkiller Base weapon.
We aren’t entirely sure how widespread the First Order is. I got the impression that the Republic was larger with the First Order significant and dangerous. They change the game a bit by blowing up the main Republic systems