They are spending way more but we still are. Just because on paper we aren't as much and it's not spammed on the MSM doesn't mean we aren't. Similar to the cold war, you think there was an itemized & disclosed line item called 'pallets of dollars for contras in South America and Asia' ? The intelligence/logistic apparatus of NATO is still mostly the US military you get that right

This post was edited by ofthevoid on Jun 9 2026 03:17pm

How much additional cost does it actually cause the US, though? It's not like the DoD or the intelligence community would drastically downsize their budget or their staffing levels if the US pulled out of Ukraine entirely. You'd have more intelligence operatives or logistics units sitting idle or go underutilized, but they obviously wouldn't be cut. Essentially, at the current level of engagement, the US is mostly putting the excess capacities of its bloated military and intelligence apparatus to actual work.

This post was edited by Black XistenZ on Jun 9 2026 04:00pm

I'm not sure that's the way it works. US has dozens of European bases that primarily exist and have existed to counter USSR then Russia, these are ongoing spending commitments in perpetuity. There's a bunch soldiers, infrastructure, intelligence workers, spy planes, satellites and on and future commitments for this. If you moved many of those assets to lets say ME or east Asia to counter China, IMO sure some of the buildings/physical infrastructure may be under utilized but i bet the vast majority can absolutely be redirected.

Trumps 50% ask for DOD increase next year i think is in part because they don't want to move significant assets from one theater to another. Don't you recall Ukraine complaining about AA redirection from them to ME? They don't want to cannibalize the European defense infrastructure (with Ukraine now being the bulwark of it), so only solutions are 1. ask euros to spend more and 2. increase spending for DOD

This post was edited by ofthevoid on Jun 9 2026 05:12pm

Oh, I wasn't talking about a long-term withdrawal of US forces from Europe, I was talking about the current, day-to-day support for Ukraine. Like giving them intel or logistics support.

For example, if the US military no longer shared its spy satellite data with Ukraine, the same satellites would still roam in orbit somewhere and some operator on the ground would need to control it, some analyst would have to process its data. If cargo planes of a logistics unit no longer shipped materiel to Poland/the Baltics for subsequent use Ukraine, they would just sit idle. And so on and forth.

Of course a drawdown from Europe would eventually, after years of closing bases, save a ton of money. But then again: investment and pension funds from the US have trillions of dollars invested in the European economy, so the Americans are basically there to protect their assets and trade routes. Sure, it would be nice if their European allies started carrying their own weight in terms of defense, but if push really came to shove, the US would have no other choice than to bail them out yet again.

This post was edited by Black XistenZ on Jun 9 2026 05:56pm

Bro its been over 100 days now. We've blown through billions of dollars now and 0 progress. This is a no Bueno.

Trump will be forced to resign at this pace.