In a paper that I did in grad school (circa 1986-87), I tested a hypothesis that the religious right would be more likely to expect war (apocalyptic thinking) than non-religious people. Playing with the data, which I my faint memory suggests was NORC survey data, I found that people who had experienced trauma, in the last year, and earlier, were much more likely to expect war. I never got my paper back from Glenn Firebaugh, so I can't remember the details about the data sources, but the association was rather strong with the experience of trauma. This might also be a factor in the defense spending feelings.