It seems to me that in the US warfare has been the spark for the movement towards collectivism. We saw it with Lincoln as he squashed state rights and centralized power. We saw it with Woodrow Wilson with WW 1. Wilson helped push through the federal income tax, centralized the banking, and created a much greater war machine than the US has ever known. FDR then came into the picture during WW 2 and passed social security and the New Deal programs and made the US the greatest military power on earth. This then led to wars in Korea, Vietnam, Grenada, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, etc. The correlation between military might and collectivism is unmistakable. In fact, it seems that the collectivist has now created a never ending state of war, thus justifying all of their collectivist actions with such legislation as the Patriot Act, NDAA, etc. Is collectivism necessary to create such great war machines? Ironically, even though the US has won its wars against the collectivist war machines abroad, they seem to become more and more like the governments they conquered. It's like a dog chasing its tail.
FDR and his New Deal came along way before WW2 - try1933 through1936. Neither the New Deal or the WW2 military build up AND SUBSEQUENT REDUCTION after that war "led to" Korea, Viet Nam, or the rest of the wars. In fact, as an overall trend, US military numbers, both in proportional strength and cost as % GDP have been dropping over the entire era. However, your are correct that the Allies' WW2 victory plus the post-WW2 emergence of the Soviet + Chinese communist threats did force the US into adopting a prominent role in containment in response to the communist goals and policies of expansion. I'm pretty sure that any large scale, global force of expansion and repression would have produced similar strategic/interventionist policy responses from the US. The collectivists aren't special - i.e. they aren't the only troublemakers in the world. Islam has risen to the challenge of winning the title of Most Likely to Create Havoc, with their wearisome Allah-sanctioned gospel of repression and strife. Our interventionist policies in response to these various world troublemakers provide the very fuel that the troublemakers use to power their troublemaking efforts - and it's that fact that can be pictured as "the dog chasing its own tail". In that light, much of the world paints the US as the chief troublemaker and winner of the Most Likely to Create Havoc title. [I don't go quite that far.]
Collectivism, which is just another branch of statism, uses & promotes war to survive. In order for the state to keep power, they need continued stimulation, & nothing stimulates people like war. The state survives by taking from it's citizens, & if it can take from other citizens, that gives the locals a break. But statist systems have little interest in promoting peace, justice, & liberty. So they don't. The 1st panacea of a mismanaged nation is inflation of the currency; the 2nd is war. Both bring a temporary prosperity; a permanent ruin. ~Ernest Hemingway Statism needs war; a free country does not. Statism survives by looting; a free country survives by producing. ~Ayn Rand
