Eli5: Why is it that whenever we hear about “defense spending” it’s always on offensive things like weapons? Is there not a way to make actual defense the priority instead of offense?

Question

I could be missing the point about military spending, and the five-year-old in my head asking the question does just want forcefields over every country in the end.

In: Technology

Answer 1

Because Defense Spending is actually “Defending the Empire we created through invasion of other nations” spending.

Stealing the natural resources of other countries tends to make those people hate you and therefore requires a LOT of money to prevent them from rising up and killing us.

If we simply stopped stealing their resources we could reduce our spending by 90% and STILL be the largest spender in the world.