do not discount the addictive qualities of endless budget. The same motivations are replayed again and again, with train loads of money attached, without ceasing over years. But the markets today have evolved -- budgets are used to purchase goods and services from companies.. that benefits the government that pays them, the immediate employees, and sometimes the general public.

There has never been a time with so many people, and so few wars, relatively speaking. Why increase budgets? Why operate at an increasing loss each year waiting for giant monetary rescue? The reasons are as old as human failing, and as obvious as poor systems design, sometimes. Its a thousand roller coasters running without synchronizing, it seems.

They benefit even more by not serially starting wars all over the world in the first place.

Here's a suggestion for Europe. Keep your promises. Since the Berlin wall fell the west promised to not move their positions beyond it. They did so anyway and went all the way to the point of inviting Ukraine to join. Fast forward to Minsk accords the Germans and French admitted they were never going to abide by those terms. So the Russians have nobody in Europe that they can even deal with, since they never keep their promises. Hollande and Merkel both admitted this publicly.

My suggestiom would be to demilitarize NATO and create a new security architecture that states if you come one step westbound we will nuke you (Russians). That will be enough to appease both sides and you'll save boatloads of money from being pilfered by the west's military industrial complex.

I hate that the Ukrainians have been used as pawns in a western gambit when they could have had literally the best of both worlds. Low energy prices from the east and European culture and influences from the west. But now because of the petulant children in power in Europe they can't have any semblance of a society anymore.