I've heard the hypothesis that many in the US elite saw the confrontation with USSR as being similar to the Punic wars. With US similar to Carthage being the sea/trading power and USSR similar to Rome being the land power - poorer, but highly militarized. This being one of the arguments for keeping the US military budget high, as one of the reason for Carthage destruction was it's elites had a lot of money, but didn't invest enough into army and navy.