[marshray]

I think it's entirely reasonable to discuss tech priorities and national infrastructure spending. Maybe 'war' has a particularly political dimension, but so does Social Security, welfare programs, national health care, manned space exploration, etc. Basically any large spending program is going to be a political, almost by definition.

[orky56]

I agree with your point but framing things as war instead of defense spending is leading and politically inclined.

[marshray]

I think most people distinguish between "baseline defense spending" and "elective war" in a general sense without either term feeling overtly political.

But if we were to take the set of [Korea, Cuba, Vietnam, Grenada, Panama, Iraq, Yugoslavia, Somalia, Afghanistan, Iraq] and try to decide in particular which are which, we would quickly find that to be political.

So in America, the political-ness of "war" tends to shift with the times. Right now, those times are 'interesting'.