It looked like America could finally pare down the massive war machine developed to contain the Evil Empire, as President Ronald Reagan famously termed the U.S.S.R.
But in August Saddam Hussein’s Iraq invaded Kuwait. The emcee at a convention of military contractors publicly thanked Hussein. War again was on the national agenda and the Pentagon could count on increased appropriations, much of which would be funneled to what Dwight Eisenhower famously termed the military-industrial complex.