Theater-scale fancy weapon system spending are more or less pointless. Against other developed countries, things will boil down to "MY WORDS ARE BACKED WITH NUCLEAR WEAPONS" and the Vietnam-style proxy wars will ensue because no one wants to actually nuke anything, or they'll degenerate into nasty trade wars.
Against lesser-developed, insurgent-style forces, big lumbering weapons don't mean anything. Howitzers? Yeah, like you can use that on a neighborhood. Stealth bombers? WTF, they don't even have radar. Advanced air superiority fighters? LOLOLOLOLOLOL.
We need to think less about these fancy systems and focus more on intelligence spending, personal weapon and defense systems, infantry support vehicles, unnmanned probes, and what not. That, and putting in more long-term soliders and troops in the infantry and special forces, while paring down the size of the navy and air force some.
Everyone calls it the "Cold War" syndrome at the Pentagon. It's actually just a ingrained cycle of spending to appease defense contractors and keep the budget as large as possible.
