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And the next time there is a large scale conflict, some neighbour country may feel tempted to use that opportunity to send a single division to your country and absorb it.

Then you can say how wonderful it is to save a fraction of a percentage point of your GDP on defence and how it worked so well until the day it was needed.

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That argument could be made about pretty much any small country using a superpower as the "neighbor". Take for example Russia annexing Crimea.

At the end of the day, it isn't the presence of a military that makes the difference, but the strength and spread of the country's treaties with other nations.

But at the end of the day, somebody still needs to spend money on a military. Being put under the umbrella of the US/Russia/China/etc just alters where it is based out of, and makes you vulnerable to the demands of those that provide it.

>spread of the country's treaties with other nations.

Ukraine example shows that treaties are worthless. Neither USA nor UK did anything to protect its territorial integrity as they agreed upon.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budapest_Memorandum_on_Securit...

A memorandum is specifically not a treaty.

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