Ever since Benoit's(1973, 1978) study, the relationship between defense spending and economic growth has been the subject of extensive empirical works. While a number of studies have reported that higher defense expenditure stimulate economic growth, many other studies have reported that an increase in military burden may hinder economic growth. To the extent that countries differ substantially in socioeconomic structures, the effects of defense spending cannot be generalized across countries. In this paper, Granger causality tests are performed between Korean defense expenditure and economic growth, consumption, investment, inflation and unemployment rate during the period from 1970 to 2002. The results show that Korean defense expenditure did not affect economic growth and unemployment rate. However, Korean defense expenditure caused consumption and inflation to decrease and investment to increase. On the other hand Korean defense expenditure was not Granger-caused by economic growth, consumption, investment, inflation and unemployment rate. In conclusion, the opportunity cost of Korean defense expenditure seemed to be relatively moderate considering Korean security environment. Even if it was not statistically significant, Korean defense burden at least did not bother economic growth.