Highly efficient and utilitarian in both cases.
Especially when you consider the tertiary effects of greater widespread daily peace of mind and social morale, two things that tend to spill over positively into all areas of life and to non-obvious beneficiaries.
In the same way, we spend resources to save one drowning man, not so much to save that one man, but to let all seafaring men to know that if need be, we will do our best to save them.