re: Would we be as technologically advanced without the Cold War?

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Well...a tank is not manufacturing other tanks

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Neither is a shoe or a cabinet, but all have economic benefits.

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or creating consumer goods and services

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Does the American public not "consume" the tank? Or the individual tank driver?

The very existence of private military contractors undercuts your thinking here.

You'll have to define what exactly you mean by "dead end investment" because I've never heard economists that I've been around use that term.