Does money spent on military means more deaths?
That seems not to be the case. There are many wars in Africa, but not so much money spent. Also, China and countries in Western Europe spend a lot, however, they’re not actively fighting (some missions to some hot spots do not count).
In the Middle East – the boiling point of wars – the biggest spenders are Saudi Arabia, which fights satellite war in Yemen, and Israel which fights against Palestine (as I understand it). But many more casualties come from Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan, all of which seem to be a mixture of civil wars and satellite wars.
The special case is the USA which will have its separate chart.
This topic is so geopolitical, that I refrain from diving into deeper conclusions, but it’s tempting to say, that more weapons do not make more deaths. More stupidity does.
What:
> Military expenditure in constant USD – some data for USSR and UAE were interpolated using very rough methods – just to fill the gaps and avoid fake jumps. This data have lots of gaps.
> Deaths due to Conflict and Terrorism.
When: 1980-2018 (Data for deaths until 2017)
Where: Probably the whole world
Source: Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation for deaths + Stockholm International Peace Research Institute for expenditure