> My, the world has changed.

Has it though? I'd say it's morphed, not changed. This is still, underneath it all, Hanseatic League and East India Company domination style colonialism, but adapted to and shaped by the digital age.

The US has pretty much all throughout its history had its military-industrial complex and warfare as an economic motor too, and in view of this, it's inevitable that software gets integrated.

Israel, the most recent settler-colonial state (of course some people try to claim it's not using various mental gymnastics, but I'm not fooled), was the experiment and has become a model for how to intermingle the industrial-military complex with society to the degree they two become indistinguishable, and with backing of the West it's been a very profitable and, I hate to say it, successful model.

Here's[1] a review of a book about the subject, talking about the state incubating start-ups and spawning a tech sector for the sole purpose of warmongering.

[1]: https://theconversation.com/the-harvard-of-anti-terrorism-ho...

Be careful with this "they are all the same" logic. As an empire, I would rather have the WWII to 2016 USA than the current one and the current one to Russia.