Military spending, even in the US, is almost an order of magnitude smaller than social security spending. Many western European countries have about 20% GDP spending on social security (including healthcare, public pensions, etc.). The US spends 3% of GDP in defence, most EU countries 1-2%. So defence spending is almost a rounding error here, it can be increased or decreased without almost affecting social security spending.
DecentlySizedPotato t1_j2dn9ou wrote
Reply to comment by IndeterminateYogurt in [OC] Around 30% of countries spend more than 2% of GDP on their military by IndeterminateYogurt
Military spending, even in the US, is almost an order of magnitude smaller than social security spending. Many western European countries have about 20% GDP spending on social security (including healthcare, public pensions, etc.). The US spends 3% of GDP in defence, most EU countries 1-2%. So defence spending is almost a rounding error here, it can be increased or decreased without almost affecting social security spending.