Perhaps do not just compare the number of military personnel. Obviously the number would go up 10x for those counties too during war. Just like it did in Ukraine.
You understand that the USA is a... unity of lots of states just like the EU, right? Even more than 31. Many of them far larger than many EU countries. Overall EU and USA are pretty much the same size. So why do you not want to compare them directly but still say that they are weaker? How does that make sense?
If China invaded Mexico I would assume that Trump is all for it and talks about how this restores order Blabla and how he is great.
If you put yourself above others, which almost everyone does, then yes, that is the logical conclusion. There is nothing you can do, as everything you do might make it worse for you. So regardless of how obviously better in the grand scheme of things, people do not do it. That is how almost every human "is programmed" and I do not know if we will every get beyond this primitive thinking.
But why put them in the hole? If you have no clean burning, the filter mostly gets carbon, which can be burned again. Some plastics like PVC release HCl, so you need to scrub that, but the result is harmless table salt. The biggest issue is formation of dioxins, so you need to have a high flame temperature to make sure everything burns clean.
Otherwise dust etc. could contain heavy metals, but that is not directly from the plastic.
There is a big drawback tho: It is far more likely that a sub here simply stops existing. Everything everyone did there is simply gone. I have had that happen with several classical forums before, but they usually lasted more than a decade. Also, it is not exactly easy to find stuff written here, so it is way too fenced off. If I write a guide how to fix X, how would anyone find it?
Russia tests nuclear weapons regularly? Got some more reddit links to prove that?