did bin laden take a page from reagan?

Calm down, I'm not calling the Gipper a terrorist. But I am wondering why this has never occurred to me:

Perhaps the most important takeaway from the white paper is the official recognition that the size of the defense budget itself represents a threat to U.S. national security. In theory, this should not be such a remarkable insight; one common narrative explaining the end of the Cold War is that the United States drove the Soviet Union to economic ruin by forcing it to maintain an unsustainable military budget. As Bernard Finel suggests, the United States has now committed itself to a degree of dominance over potential rivals that may be unsustainable in the long run, and that in and of itself poses risks.

Via Sullivan, who includes an infographic from Cato that really drives the point home: the DOD budget is nearly 50% higher than it was in the late 80's (in 2011 dollars.)

I cannot wrap my brain around how anyone can regard a handful of cave-dwelling religious fanatics as a greater existential threat to this country than a hostile superpower with enough nukes to kill us all 10 times over. I mean, I realize the nukes are still in Russia, Pakistan is scary, North Korea is unpredictable, and China is ascendent. But those issues all pre-date the current DoD spending binge. Make no mistake: this is mostly about the "Global War on Terror", regardless of what we are calling it these days.