Where our defense money goes

Most of the countries in the embedded essay below are NATO members. They spend a pittance on their defense budgets. Instead, we pick up their tab. You can't understand the true costs of the US defense budget without understanding how much of other countries' defense budgets are actually being paid for inside ours - without reimbursement and, for that matter, without any reason.

As I have written before, NATO is obsolete and purposeless. It's past time for the US to disengage from NATO. See:

What has NATO does for us?

The pointlessness of NATO