Always a struggle for me. I saw Canada’s demo CF-18 at an airshow a few years back and was having simultaneous thoughts of “so this is why we can’t afford clean water for our indigenous communities” and “HOLY SHIT IT SOUNDS SO COOL”.
Frequently those problems could be solved for the cost of a single aircraft.
You can’t afford clean water for indigenous people because they couldn’t buy one fewer aircraft.
You needed all 138.
I see military spending as a necessary evil, it’s like paying your insurance policy against the evils in the world. There will always be someone with a stick willing to beat someone weaker than them. So you could theoretically spend that military money on something “more useful”, but if all your friends do that as well, you won’t be able to enjoy that nice world for very long.
Also, people usually highly overrate how much a country spends on defense and underrate how much is spent on social security. Where I live, in Belgium, with a similar military budget as Canada (in terms of % of GDP) they did a survey once and asked people to estimate how many euros out of €100 of tax money went to the military and other things. People on average thought it was €6.1 to the military and €17.4 to social security. In reality the proportions are just €1.3 to the military and €37.5 to social security.
So I guess what I’m saying is: it’s okay to enjoy the cool noises without guilt. You paid for it, it’s necessary, and at least they’re providing people with some entertainment now.
