After seeing that military spending has no visible relation to deaths in most regions I decided to investigate the special relation the USA has with the wars in the East.
Some major wars in the East are indicated on the chart. During those, the military expenditure of the USA seems to climb up. Data for deaths are available only from 1980, and I filtered out only the relevant region.
Is the USA the reason for those deaths? Or are those people just fighting among themselves, and the USA just gets involved? Does it worsens the situation, or improves? I’ll leave those questions open for now.
What: Military expenditure in constant USD + Deaths due to Conflict and Terrorism.
When: Expenditure: 1949-2018, Deaths: 1980-2017
Where: Expenditure: USA only, Deaths: Middle East, North Africa, and Afghanistan
Source: Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation for deaths + Stockholm International Peace Research Institute for expenditure.