I have to disagree here. A major part of the reason we DID invest what we did was because of the Cold War. That was the core reason we sent a guy to the moon – to stick it to Ivan. There is far more cross over between CW peace and war technologies, I think than people realize. ICBMs rest on similar technology bases as rockets that can get us in space…
Think about that - at the same time we were heavily investing in nukes, we were heavily investing in the academic infrastructure that would support our Cold War efforts – computing and engineering, area studies in the humanities, foreign language programs, things like the Fulbright programs— all of these were started BECAUSE of the cold war. Why do you think liberals were so heavily invested in the Cold War-- because it gave them the ability to piggy back an amazing array of social programs (think of the connection between the–admittedly failed–great society and Vietnam for example). And then look at how government has pulled out of such things since the end of the Cold War.
Now I am not arguing that the Cold War was a “good thing”, because I’m not John Lewis Gaddis, but I’m arguing that the line between military and domestic spending is not so clear cut.
