“The cost of maintaining this [Roman imperial] force, dispersed across millions of square miles from the North Sea to the Caspian Sea, gobbled between 2 and 4 percent of the empire’s entire GDP every year; well over half the state budget was spent on defense.” – Powers and Thrones (Dan Jones)

https://bookshop.org/ebooks/quotes/d107da99-9b5a-4b61-a9e7-07dbdbdcc4b1

So… he used the word “defense”, and that popped out at me. That word has really wormed its way in to our vocabulary. Not “spent on war” or “spent on the military” but “spent on the noble and peaceful cause of defense.”

Ministry of Truth!