A government has a responsibility to its citizens to ensure that their safety. Therefore, some people think that the government should increase spending on defense and spend less on social benefits. To what extent do you agree?

The governing administration of a country is liable to assure its population's well-being. A number of people believe that the investments in border security should be amplified, even at the cost of social security funding, as border security is the foremost line of public well-being. However, I do not agree with this, as social safety is equally important for the citizens, so is the geopolitical safety, because a serious lack in social safety can lead to extreme imbalance in the country. Firstly, providing a sense of security, both internally and externally to its citizens is the primary duty of any government. However, a majority of the chunk of a country's budget is allocated to protect its borders, especially when there are prevailing disputes between the neighbouring countries. Owing to these disputes the neighbouring countries try to cause disturbances for each other either by attacking borders or by sending infiltrates. This causes serious harm to people and public properties. For example, India and Pakistan are engaged in a geopolitical deadlock since their partition. Every now and then to create disturbance in the country, Pakistani militants enter the borders and target public institutions, causing sever loss of lives and property. Thus, to thwart this infiltration the government has to deploy billions of dollar, which otherwise could have been used for uplifting their quality of life by enhancing public welfare works. On the other hand, if the country only focuses on external security and not he internal, that is of its citizens, then this could give birth to serious conditions like civil wars. Some very appropriate examples of such situations can be sited in countries of middle east like Iraq, Syria and Libiya. Where the governments drastically failed to address the issues of its people, which created an economic turmoil in the country, where rich was getting richer and poor was getting poorer. Consequently, it started civil war in these countries and the results were obnoxious, as many people lost their lives, economies dampened and public property shattered. Therefore, it is extremely important to not neglect the social well-fare of the people. In the end, I would reiterate that securing borders of the country would thwart the infiltration whereas, strengthening the social schemes will maintain internal harmony and equality. Hence, government should not reduce its spending on social schemes to benefit the defence.