Which is why I ended the article with a demand for proof before acceptance.

As with most who have studied war overmuch, I desperately want peace...and Eisenhower's warning of the military-industrial complex rings ever truer.

But - you saw the 'but' coming, didn't you? - most research is a gamble, and the higher the stakes, the more one is willing (and in the case of great nations, forced) to wager on the next great advance.

As with the previous Cold War, this is no game. It's deadly serious, and if you paid attention to what lengths China is willing to go to cement their hegemony, we in the West dare not lose.

So it's a choice - you can either go all in...or you can give up. I know how offensive, how incredibly wrong that sounds...but like the last Cold War, it's what we now face.