The sustainability of the dark side

The Cold War provided for a war economy, with the implied scarcity and insecurity behind it, without the war fighting. The Cold War could thus be sustained for decades whereas shooting wars, in the total-war context of modern industrial warfare, could typically not last more than a handful of years. Then, of course, the war on terror replaced the Cold War as the engine for economic demand-creation in an economic system that could only work properly where demand is held constant or is increasing.