I believe a lot of it is our big government needs to keep feeding itself.
If you didn’t have enemies, you wouldn’t need all the FUNDING. Imagine an ATF without the war on drugs? There really wouldn’t be near as much need for the ATF.
I believe the CIA likes to create enemies — Iraq WMDs a “slam dunk,” involvement Benghazi, Syria, etc. If there isn’t controversy around the world, citizens would question all the FUNDING that goes to our intelligence community.
FUNDING means expansion of operations, job security, pensions, etc.
Additionally, we’ve got a military industrial complex that needs to be fed too.
War allows the government to conduct acts of war against the people that it could never get away with in peacetime.
Who would have thought, 20 years ago, that today America would have a surveillance state to put East Germany’s worst to shame?
What you’ve said originated as propaganda with the communist united from efforts after WWII.