Yeah I think a story about an arms buildup and a defense industrial complex just doesn’t work well in a movie. In real life it’s about subtle influences on politics not “pew pew pew”, there’s not even any opportunities for passionate speeches. Just “maybe it’s bad to put so many resources towards building warships and once you have them you might be tempted to use them to justify the expenditure… someday.” In the real world it’s a trend over time, so how do you make a compelling story about that? If you deviate too much to make it more interesting it’s not accurate to the real world, and then it’s more like a fictional problem.