When the Soviet Union disappeared in 1991, U.S. weapons makers saw their Cold War gravy train grind to a halt. By 1993, the big weaponeers like Boeing, Raytheon, Northrup and Lockheed stemmed the bleeding by gobbling up the smaller players, acquiring new economic muscle in a dwindling domestic market.
To keep profits booming they turned eastward, all the way to the former Soviet republics. Their brilliant scheme was to bring these nations into NATO so they could sell them endless billions in weaponry. Weapons hawkers flooded these new markets while their lobbyists flooded Congress, making defense contractors among the most prominent supporters of NATO expansion. They had plenty of help from NATO expansionists in Congress, the military and the pundit class.