Briefly, Noah notes the Defense Department budget next year is the largest ever and that “many analysts — even before the bailout — predicted that the gravy train was going to have to slow down, under the weight of the costs for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.”
Funny thing about that. There’s a reason our adversaries conduct “asymmetric warfare.” We like to think it’s because they can’t match our military might. The subtext being that they want to, but they just can’t. Al Qaeda, China, Venezuela, they don’t want to and they don’t need to. Information to persuade and dissuade is cheap, relatively cheap compared to the cost of weapons systems.