[wongarsu]

The elephant in the room is that military budget has to keep going up ("support the troops", create jobs and satisfy lobbyists) but there is no good goal to work towards. Great things happened in the 1940s to 70s because there were clear enemies and clear steps to take to gain and keep superiority. Today the US has a military budget three times bigger than that of the next largest spender, and everything necessary to fulfill the current challenges already exists and is in operation. So you spend the rest to prepare for the future, but with no external pressure to do so fast or efficiently.