Modern economies to a large extent *depend* on "waste of money" production. Once enough of the "basic needs" (food, clothing, housing) are being produced, it all becomes largely a question of *distributing* the wealth. And with modern production systems, a tiny minority of the population is enough to produce all that we "really need". So why doesn't all the money end up in the pockets of those few? Well, because modern society has successfully indoctrinated them (along with everybody else) that they need a lot of "strictly speaking useless" frippery, like fashion clothing and PlayStations and manicures and... and so on and on and on, ad absurdum.

So the money circulates -- and thus, stimulates production as well as distributing the means necessary to live -- from the ones one might naively think would be the only ones to "deserve" or be able to get any (farmers, miners, workers and employees in "non-frippery" industries) out among everybody else, be they hairdressers, telephone sanitation technicians, or polishers of pet rocks and Barney-doll marketing VPs. And martial equipment is just one more kind of the same wider category; not-strictly-necessary stuff that nevertheless "gets the wheels of the economy rolling faster".

Quite contary to what you may think at first, this "waste" does not mean you get less "real useful" production out of the economy (though you might get fewer manicures and pet rocks and Barney dolls for a while; there *is* after all *some* "crowding out"), but more: All the people, from miners and smelters to weapons-industry technologists and executives, who are building those tanks and guns and rockets -- they're getting paid in money that's just as real as anyone else's! And they, too, are queuing up to buy food and cars and jeans and hair-cuts! (Albeit possibly Barney dolls and pet rocks.)

Which stimulates those industries to produce more, not less.