Economy troubles (Fearless Blue)

Okay so my economy was doing just fine and I had all the requirements needed to become level 2 except i needed my defense index to go up. So i started building defenses and increased the garrison to all my fortresses. Once i did that I lost over 1 trillion dollars i had and i'm now 700 billion dollars in debt and counting. What should i do?!?

New players are better off to switch to peaceful levels and work on those until level 6. Military is expensive, both to buy and maintain.
After that, you can switch back to regular levels and buy missile interceptor batteries to cheaply increase your defense index.

The reason I say to stop at 6 for peaceful levels is because 7 requires 2 countries and I don't recommend getting a second country until your main is built up.

If you're new to the game, I would also suggest to get off of Fearless Blue and go to a different world. On FB your main country will eventually lose war protection, but on the other worlds your first country is safe forever.

okay thanks. So how do i change to peaceful mode? Can i deactivate my weapons so i don't have to pay for them?

Don't deactivate .Buy a space station and the next day it will be built ,then click space program,click inspect space center,click manage cargo,pick the product you wish to put in space.Type in the # of weapons you want in the white box and hit exchange.Just put your weapons up there?