What the world needs now is weapons

[EPG]

One of Trump's policies is to make allies spend more on defence, which is a euphemism for attack. Amazingly, he asked why Japan doesn't spend much money in its alliance while America, shall we say, "provides" military bases (answer: it's because America subjected Japan to repeated atomic bombing in WW2, then occupied Japan). NATO allies like Portugal seem to be responding, but in much of the rest of the world, this is just continuing a trend in the last five years. One of the biggest beneficiaries of loose fiscal policy since the relaxation of worldwide austerity has been the arms trade.

I would like to know whether it has mattered, from a comparative politics perspective, or have politicians seen many benefits from this, or has it been quietly wasteful spending? Has the growing burden of defence spending been a political problem anywhere? Will it lead to new opportunities, probably for parties on the left, to oppose more NATO / Trump spending?