Look to the Reagan administration's "Star Wars" project. In fact, that was just the tip of the iceberg of funds misspent by that regime. After concocting outlandish scenarios of a Soviet arms buildup, admin wonks tasked the CIA with finding proof of such. The CIA came back with the observation that there was no such evidence. The administration successfully spun this as "proof" the Soviets were up to much worse than even the wonks' wildest claims, and allocated tens of billions of dollars to wasteful, unnecessary defence spending. The fall of the Soviet Union, and the release of Soviet documents, revealed the arms buildup to be a Reagan administration fantasy.
