The U.S. also spends more money on education and healthcare than any other country. How is that at all surprising? The U.S. spends 3.1% of GDP on the military, more than the EU average, but less than Russia. Given the state of the world, where we've made an express commitment to protect the EU from Russia, that should not be surprising.

Comparing military spending as one big lump $600 billion for the U.S. versus $225 billion for the EU versus $60 billion for Russia ignores several really important things.

First, a dollar buys you much more in Russia than in the U.S.[1] Adjusted for purchasing power, Russia's defense budget is more equivalent to $180 billion: https://www.defensenews.com/opinion/commentary/2019/05/03/ru.... (The same is actually true for Europe too. Europe's PPP GDP is 20% higher than its nominal GDP, making the EU 28 defense budget more like $270 billion U.S.)

Second, it's not unreasonable for the U.S. to want to not merely achieve parity, but have a decisive advantage. Having a decisive technological edge costs you exponentially more money. The 747 cost about $7.5 billion (in today's money) to develop. The 787 cost $32 billion. The more advanced technology cost a lot more to develop even in inflation-adjusted dollars. The same is true for all sorts of high-tech industrial equipment. The cost of a new fab tripled from 1998 to 2010: https://www.technologyreview.com/s/418576/the-high-cost-of-u....

Third, going back to Eisenhower, the cost to society of having a military scales with population. We can afford to spend $600 billion on the military more than Russia can afford to spend $60 billion. That's why it makes sense to look at it as a percentage of GDP--how much of our economic output are we devoting to the military, versus other things?

3% of GDP is higher than Europe now, but about the same as what France was spending as recently as the early 1990s: https://tradingeconomics.com/france/military-expenditure-per.... Were we talking about how French military expenditures were a mark of crazy imperialism back then?

[1] To give a concrete example, sources report that Russian subway lines cost 10-15 billion rubles per kilometer: https://www.metro-report.com/news/single-view/view/the-winne.... That’s $150-230 million by exchange rate. In the US, subway lines in SF and LA have ranged from $375-562 million per km. In New York, the Second Avenue subway was $1.6 billion per mile. You’d never compare New York’s or SF’s subway budget with Russia’s without accounting for that.