It’s kind of fucking stupid that idiots like this view social services and infrastructure as just vote-grabbing nothings when they keep people alive and working and have VERY tangible benefits but simp for institutions of war. In peacetime those programs give such a benefit a single income used to support an entire family, in war those programs mean the populace has the economic strength and industrial productivity to go to war keeping supply lines solid even to distant fronts and enlistees can go fight without fear of the home crumbling behind them. In peacetime throwing money at the military is one of the oldest standby strategies for when you have absolutely nothing to offer voters but a pining for “glory” and produces nothing but a sense of entitlement by the perception you’re supposed to be strong enough to just take what you want and standing on equal footing whether internationally or with your own neighbour is actually an insult.
In times of war everything tangible you spent that money on is *expended* and returns no investments i.e. bombs and bullets and parades and if you did that spending showing negligence or outright contempt for infrastructure and the working class the means of production are sorely limited in the face of sudden strain. If you think the spoils of war are enough of a gain that you survive solely by making war you’re deluding yourself, Sparta and Rome tried that and they’re ancient history. You run out of pockets to pick fast, friends even faster, and the newly claimed lands - no matter how hard you push “hereditary” loyalty - eventually rebel to keep their “homeland’s” fingers out of their new home’s pie and the whole process starts over and multiplies. Kind of how America got started, if you’ll remember. And how the British Empire became a fraction of what it was.
If you continue with the logic that the spoils should not be spent on the people and just go back into war you’re making a perpetually starved monster eating its own tail with no other game plan than pointing the finger squarely at the people suffering most and that suffering is by design. Potential soldiers would be so afraid of losing their homes and livlihoods for as little as a month of being away from bills could see them broke they dare not enlist even if they think they outclass their enemies to such a degree their physical safety is a non-issue, and even the hardware a budget that dwarfs the combined military spending of every other country combined can affor does not actually guarantee an edge as Vietnam would evidence. On the medical side? You have fewer people even *healthy* enough to be anything more than malnourished cannon fodder carrying expensive gear for the enemy to plunder for free or piloting vehicles they cannot operate at their full capacity because no matter how fancy the gear is it is limited by its human operator who if hamstringed by a poor educational and mental development will struggle to memorize the controls, adapt to new conditions, or co-ordinate with the rest of their fellow soldiers who can be endangered by friendly fire.
Social services as vote grabs is patently ridiculous when you see how hard they are to campaign on. They’re not sexy, the people who know the good they do don’t need convincing to stay the course unless they’re suddenly in danger of losing them and that danger usually comes unannounced and from behind the scenes. Those who don’t notice the benefits until they’re gone are likely to completely blank out on the connection and are usually content to start blaming immigrants or women in the workplace and can only see something else being taken from them instead of something they’re getting back.
Where it goes from stupid to funny is when race-baiters (like I know Jon here’s dabbled in) get involved. They try to characterize nonwhites as “living off welfare” and the more “acceptable” demographics that happen to be poor (a rapidly expanding condition as hyper-conservatism and eventual fascism sink in which is again entirely by design) as worthless layabouts not fit to be in the country “polluting the blood” and glorify the military they impose their own image on but refuse to acknowledge that a disproportionate percentage of the military is exactly those nonwhites and working poor trying to keep out of poverty. The military deliberately targets the people racists and elitists wouldn’t consider fit to shine their shoes for recruitment because they’re more willing to put their lives on the line to make a better life for themselves and the military dangles a lifeline out of poverty, (a wholely inadequete lifeline in most cases further undermined by systemic prejudice,) than these armchair generals who typically only join if they’re certain they have the connections to get a post and position of their choice far from any real danger, away from the filthy grunts, and mostly just to brag about a family pedigree of wearing the uniform rather than any real service rendered. But as a matter of their contradictory logic they cannot allow themselves to make the connection between the military they glorify and the people who comprise a near majority of it whom they relentlessly villify. And that their loss would mean the military as they think they know it would cease to exist effectively leaving them open to their actual enemies.
