[geofft]

The Cold War is an interesting example. We fought the Korean War relatively successfully, and we were left with the country split into a prosperous modern economy on one side and a paranoid (arguably justifiably so), insular dictatorship on the other. We lost the Vietnam War and the country is doing quite well. The Soviet Union itself fell without a direct war - ramping up spending to be able to fight a hot war was a major cause, yes, but so was the inevitable increasing spread of information.

And China now is far too powerful for us to even think about fighting a hot war against, yet if you shared the facts about it with anyone from half a century ago, they wouldn't have to think for more than a second before recognizing it as a dictatorship, a nationalist, supposedly-socialist single-party country with a cult of personality, suppression of rights in neighboring territories, and ongoing genocide. We're playing nice with them, because if we don't, we'll be annihilated.

If humans have immense capacity for evil, one of the best things we can do is limit how much damage their dark side can do. Lots of technology is great - communications technology so you can learn about the rest of the world, the ability to increase food production and provide clean water, healthcare, protection from the elements, transportation, and so forth. It's not clear to me that missiles are really the right tool.