the military-industrial-congressional-media-k-street complex:
or the gradual buildup of habitual modes of threat inflation as an innate response to the diminishing returns of increasing defense budgets or why real wars on terror don't generate incumbent-locking appropriations. via cursor. The Chuck Spinney in question is one subject of this 1981 paper on 'The Reformers' that, among rather sharp attacks on this small group of people that "poses a serious threat to us all", describes their plan as "a fiscal aphrodisiac guaranteed to gain widespread support" - which is why the Star Wars program was cancelled by Reagan and the Pentagon became a fiscally accountable office that hasn't lost track of $1 trillion dollars, etc. I obviously don't know about the value of their tactical theories, but the budgeting message seem plainly obvious.