[Citation needed]

> When someone who most certainly does not have your best interests at heart is building technology capable of crippling or dominating you, what response do you suggest? Passivity? > The only recourse here is to either convince them to step down or to - at the very least - match them. Anything else puts you at a disadvantage and puts your citizens in danger.

You are presenting a false fallacy where the only two options are "do nothing" and "invest all possible resources available to the country into killing other people". A casual look at history book would quickly show you that escalating arms races are not beneficial in the long run - even to the country winning them, since they degenerate into building murder tools at the expense of their own citizens. Much like modern US, which is incapable of providing healthcare to their citizens.

That does not mean that no resources should be put into defense, but every civilian IS NOT morally obligated to help kill other people.