On the average, every American taxpayer is paying $583 in 2016 for NATO defense spending. Or about $72 Billion Dollars in 2016 for NATO $222 per capita but there are 320 million in America.
That is expensive war prevention insurance to pay.
https://www.sipri.org/databases/milex
STOCKHOLM INTERNATIONAL
PEACE RESEARCH INSTITUTE
The independent resource on global security
The cold war has cost maybe $50 trillion dollars between NATO, Warsaw Pact (defunct) and with the Russian Federation now. What could we have done useful toward the development of mankind with that much money?