THE BIGGEST SURPRISE about America's defense boom was how long
it lasted. Between the end of the Second World War and the
inauguration of Ronald Reagan, military spending had never gone
up for more than three years in a row—despite the Korean War,
despite Vietnam. But in the last two years of the Carter
Administration and the first four years under Reagan, military
spending rose by an average of eight percent a year, after
allowing for inflation. In the late Carter years we were
spending roughly $200 billion a year (in 1986 dollars) on the
military; now we're spending almost $300 billion. (All dollar
comparisons in this article are in constant dollars, to remove
the effects of inflation.) By 1983 the annual defense budget had
grown larger than it had been in 1968, the peak spending year
for Vietnam. By last year it had passed the peak for the Korean
War. From 1982 through 1985 the United States spent more money
on the military than it had during any four years of the Vietnam
or the Korean War. It even spent m