Excellent points Creigh. But how do we prevent the tail from wagging the dog at this point, if it is finance uber alles? Reminds me of that excellent PBS Series Wolf Hall and Thomas Cromwell saying:

"No ruler in the history of the world has ever been able to afford a war. They're not affordable things. No prince ever says, this is my budget, so this is the kind of war I can have…. The world is not run from where he [Henry VIII] thinks. Not from border fortresses, not even from Whitehall. The world is run from Antwerp, from Florence, from places he has never imagined.... Not from the castle walls, but from counting houses, not by the call of the bugle, but by the click of the abacus, not by the grate and click of the mechanism of the gun but by the scrape of the pen on the page of the promissory note that pays for the gun and the gunsmith and the powder and shot."