...with what we spent in Iraq we could build nuclear power plants and space solar power satellites and tell the Arabs to drink their oil.

In any bureaucracy, the people devoted to the benefit of the bureaucracy itself always get in control, and those dedicated to the goals the bureaucracy is supposed to accomplish have less and less influence, and sometimes are eliminated entirely.[Pournelle's law of Bureaucracy]

Mutually Assured Destruction, MAD, works only as long as it works; it does not know what to do if deterrence fails, for it envisions no defensive capabilities. A deterrent works until it is needed; then one needs defenses.

It's not only possible, but likely that the Nobel Prize in economics will go in alternate years to people who disagree on nearly everything fundamental.

The difference between Libertarian and Conservative is that Conservatives understand this, and know that unregulated capitalism will eventually end with human meat sold in market places, and slavery. Alas, many Conservatives think that everything has to be regulated and controlled.

The definition of a Dark Age is that we no longer remember what we once could do.

The American way of war is to build an army, then another, then a third, while building fleets. If the war is still on at that point we smash.