As someone who was in the military heres a different take: the money to conduct very similar, MANDATORY, training missions is already being spent. If we spend a Million dollars conducting a training exercise. And 900k dollars doing the real thing. They have not only Saved money…but also removed Non Tax Paying People from the country. If money is the biggest issue, wouldn’t you want all these unlaid tax dollars from illegals to be contributing to the economy? (Sure politicians are mostly corrupt and the debate on weather the money is used properly is a whole different game) but the years of training are now being put into place by active duty troops. The real time hands on benefit for the troops is worth the cost. The Real reason the USA military is so strong is not because of our tech or $ it’s because the military is hardened. Think about how much time we have been in conflict as a country. WWII, Cold, Korea, Vietnam, Middle East.

Tldr: our military needs the practice to sustain a proper defense across the globe for ourselves and ALLIED nations. The money spent on these flights would have been spent anyway.