What this means is, if it's more true than false that the primary object of almost any government was more this wartime mentality in expansion, and if measurably the empire hasn't stopped and if not simply expanded and criss-crossed other fields... then we are just using the bottom of those barrel or only a small parts of those fields fit for domestic use...
that's both strategically obvious and probably smart at the same time as getting money to further advance the advanced stuff,,,
- so don't give your population access to everything
- limit even what you do give them (don't give to all that's available)
- and at the same time charge them for the low-tech stuff... the batteries that aren't so good and more consumable so people have to continually pay for them...

Call it a soft-war which anyway it is (governments use it's people) but with this continuing direction towards expansion and teching-up, economic suppression of local and external.... this make you wonder and perhaps the start we've been given inside such containers of development more towards conquering others...

If I can re-write this a bit better let me know... but just imagine a tangent humans took... and we're still on it quite evidently even from what we do know more 100%...