evidence: Earlier this week, Trump, who has long viewed foreign policy from the prism of money, highlighted the defense money he says is supplied by the U.S., comparing it to that paid by other countries. "You don't pay your bills, you get no protection. It's very simple," he said. "Hundreds of billions of dollars came into NATO, and that's why they have money." Trump went on to call Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky "the greatest salesman in history" and promised that he himself will "get the Ukraine war settled." [...] By contrast, Russia is now spending 40% of its government budget on defense, cannibalizing the rest of the productive economy to fund war after losing 50% of its military might over the last two years, not dissimilar to how Ronald Reagan’s famed "Star Wars" program disproportionately drove Soviet military spending to unsustainable levels. This trend will likely only continue as Russia continues to embarrass itself over its incompetent prosecution of the war. After all, over the last five months alone, Russia has lost at least a fifth of its prized naval fleet—the most powerful navy in the world by some measures prior to the war—even though its adversary, Ukraine, does not even have a navy, amidst continued heavy casualties numbering over 500,000 by some estimates.