When it comes to Afghan intervention, the UK has some previous [1-3]. The part that seems to be frequently missed in the analysis of military spending is that

When it comes to Afghan intervention, the UK has some previous [1-3]. The part that seems to be frequently missed in the analysis of military spending is that most of the top-ranking countries have a significant domestic arms industry which receives the bulk of that money. To my knowledge, Saudi Arabia is the only exception in that chart and their spending buys them a lot of political influence instead (e.g., [4]) 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Anglo-Afghan_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Anglo-Afghan_War 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Anglo-Afghan_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Anglo-Afghan_War 3: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_Anglo-Afghan_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_Anglo-Afghan_War 4: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Yamamah_arms_deal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Yamamah_arms_deal