[prawn]

I'm talking about the 'fighting' part of the budget more than anything else. How much money and effort around the world is spent on destructive or defensive behavior rather than constructive or exploratory action?

[ars]

Very little. Most of the military budget goes to research of one kind or another. The rest goes to pay salaries for all the military employees.

[prawn]

Are you just making that up? R&D is around 10% of the US military budget (and the US military budget is roughly 50% of the world budget).

If the construction, deployment, staffing, etc was pointed towards space research and exploration, we'd be able to push forward all sorts of projects.