I think people forget that the vast majority of countries that people use as an example (Norway/Sweeden/Canada take your pick of places that don't have much of a military) don't have to police the world/protect it as we are forced to do.
We don't "have to" either. As we have seen in the middle east and as we saw in Vietnam, we "decide to". We spend trillions on wars for reasons simply created and often times unfounded rather than spend that money on our own people and country.
If we didn't... China/Russia/North Korea/take your pick of countries would invade and we would be speaking a different language and torn apart like what happened to the Romans.
This is the same exact logic that has helped create the military industrial complex that Ike warned us about decades ago.
