Ed, Sometimes specificity is the answer and sometimes it simply covers the underlying processes. Military complexes are state planned organizations. I agree with you about state religions.
All institutions have a birth, growth, maturity and death and if well developed a renewal.
No institutions like death and renewal. That is, in my humble opinion, the root cause of war in the West. They just need to tear up things in order to begin again. But these approaches you are speaking of are not new to me Ed. Stalin's 11 million in a populous world is no comparison to the 60 million slaves brought from Africa or the destruction of the largest cities in the then world in Central America and Peru.