this fear that we were going to be attacked by somebody powerful. that led to military spending that i think in some cases was excessive. the soviet union collapses in 1990, and first george h.w. bush and bill clinton begive to reduce the military because there was no longer this existential threat to our citizens, and then dick cheney and the other neocons persuade george bush they can use the threat of terrorism as the functional political equivalent of communism. the terrorists are terrible people, and i am very pleased that we are fighting against them, but they're not hitler, and they're not stalin. they don't threaten our existence as a country. they're threatening our lives. we have to fight them back, but that threat was blown up beyond the reality. so we got back into excessive military spending, including the two wars. i think what's happened finally is the american people understand there is no power in if world that comes remotely