[Mark Felton]

"What a crock. Had the Soviet Union never existed, we would still exactly this powerful due to our freedom and entrepreneurialism. The Soviet's existence and collapse had nothing to do with it. "

nope. You're dead wrong.

The US military growth was spurred on by the Cold War. Particualrly during the 1980's with Ronald Reagan we built up an incredibly massive military force the likes never seen in human history.

After the USSR collapsed we began downsizing but we stayed bulk-up and during the 1990's focused on improving the quality of our equipment and troops versus the quantity.

Without the USSR we would have grown only very little from our post WWII military.

In fact, we likely would not have fought in Vietnam or S. Korea.

Much of our technological progress can be directly attributable to our competition with the Soviet Union. We may not have gone to the moon even.

[Uncle Miltie]

I understand your point, and it is arguable both ways. Allow me the following perspective:

For every billion sucked out of taxpayers pockets to fund the anti-communist military, said billion could have been spent or capitalized in the productive economy. I daresay the return on investment in plant & equipment would beat the investment in artillery.

Not to second guess the decision on artillery; it was required by the threat. Rather, returns in the real economy tend to outstrip anything the government can do with it.