“That number was never ‘hard’ though apparently when convenient for political purpose it re-emerges often?”
I can still remember reading articles about the “peace dividend” coming our (USA) way
after the wall came down. Get a good chuckle out of that now, what a bunch of fools we were
thinking that military spending would ever be cut. As far as I know, the Pentagon has still
never been able to complete an audit, let alone pass an audit. It sounds like the NATO
countries actually acted on the wall coming down as a way to reign in military spending.
That is taboo in the USA.