Eric Chomko wrote:

Are you saying the DOD budget during the Cold War should have either
stayed the same or actually have gone down?

In 20/20 hindsight, it could have been smaller. Avoiding
Vietnam would probably have saved a lot of money, for example.
And we had many more nuclear weapons than we really needed.

Explain to me why you think
that the DOD isn't a "large government program".

Sorry, that's your hallucinations talking to you again, not me.
Anyway, the DOD budget wasn't an exercise in national potlatch
like NASA's was.

Paul