[ExTxMarine]

Perhaps a saving grace is that a military force is a net drag on an economy...

Not in a Communist country where the military is also the local police and just about everyone "joins" the military.

In those countries, they understand that the military and national defense is one of the true and purposeful functions of a national government. Granted, the costs are still there, but most Communists countries are willing to kill their own people to maintain their military costs, so they never see these expenditures as a "drag" or "negative;" at least not from their point of view!

[SteveH]

From an economics pov not some psychological pov— soldiers with guns are not farmers with plows

[MSF BU]

Precisely, their military is conscripted to flesh out the ranks so there is not a great deal of spending on personnel. We did that once upon a time and will do that again if we get into a major ground war.