about 1984 and the comment that "However, given that said war is secretly integral to the stability of the Dystopia that currently dominates the world, nobody's interested in actually winning it, so none of these projects ever come to fruition: they're just another means of eating up surplus resources that might otherwise be used to improve the standard of living."
This is true, but the balance of power is a delicate thing. Country X will be happy to overrun country Y as long as there are countries Z that can continue to serve as the common enemy of the people which a totalitarian regime requires. So whereas Y does not want to develop weapons that will easily defeat X, Z, W... in one fell swoop, for the reasons pointed out by OP, Y also does not want to fall too far behind the others either. The stalemate is one in which these secluded facilities harbour the know-how of countless weapons that are just a smidge short of completion.
about 1984 and the comment that "However, given that said war is secretly integral to the stability of the Dystopia that currently dominates the world, nobody's interested in actually winning it, so none of these projects ever come to fruition: they're just another means of eating up surplus resources that might otherwise be used to improve the standard of living."
This is true, but the balance of power is a delicate thing. Country X will be happy to overrun country Y as long as there are countries Z that can continue to serve as the common enemy of the people which a totalitarian regime requires. So whereas Y does not want to develop weapons that will easily defeat X, Z, W... in one fell swoop, for the reasons pointed out by OP, Y also does not want to fall too far behind the others either. The stalemate is one in which these secluded facilities harbour the know-how of countless weapons that are just a smidge short of completion.