Might Makes Right?

It seems to me, that hardly a day goes by without hearing of yet more spending on the military.

No one disputed that the military required more attention and in fact, the Liberals committed to 12.8 billion over 5 years. The Conservatives said they'd add 5.3 billion to that amount, which to me adds up to 18.1 billion, over 5 years.

According to this article however:

The total cost so far is more than $22 billion, which doesn't include the billions more for operations and maintenance.
It's the biggest build-up since the Second World War.

Am I missing something here?

What are we gearing up for? O'Connor is on the record today saying that we are planning to begin backing down from the mission in 6 months, (a comment that contradicts the recent report issued by the UK, btw). So, what are we planning for? Much of the equipment being announced won't even be ready until after 2009.

It seems to me that the conservatives are making up for lost time and spending as much as they can in the shortest amount of time possible, or perhaps they are planning for something we're unaware of.

Rebuilding the military is all well and good, but something seems off here.