Years ago, when I first looked into it, I was surprised to find that the Soviets won WW2, not the US, British etc. Had the US, British etc not invaded Europe, the Soviets could have taken all of Europe. Even with the US, British etc in Europe, the Soviets could have still taken the whole of Europe and overpowered them if they wished. They chose not to.
After WW2 the Soviets built a buffer around them by establishing communist nations (eg Poland, Romania etc). Why, well Russia kept getting invaded from Europe during history (eg, Napoleon, Hitler etc). During the cold war we almost had nuclear war when Russia put nuclear weapons in Cuba, yet the US has historically had nuclear weapons pointed towards Russia from Europe and Turkey....
A famous quote about the collapse of the soviet union comes to mind from Georgiy Arbatov, a prominent Soviet foreign policy expert: "we will do the most horrible thing to [the United States]; we will leave [them] without an enemy".
We also need to note that the military spending does not take into account how much is spent on the CIA which operates abroad.
The question is, why is the US spending so much more than its enemies? The US must maintain its hegemony.
After WW2 the British lost their empires. The Russians placed puppet governments in communist border countries, and some would argue that the US took some of the British colonies by also placing puppet governments in power. Colonies are a thing of history, to rule a nation today, all you now need to do is influence (ie, control) those in power. There are countless examples of this today. When those in power no longer play ball, an accident, assassination or upisising will result.
This leads us to the Ukraine. The Russians are being far more reasonable today than the US was during the Cuban missile crisis. When push comes to shove, the Russians will fall. The US is far too powerful, both militarily and economically. Some would argue the soviet union was collapsed by the US economically, and today some say that the US has influenced the recent fall in the price of oil to send the Russians a message that they will be crushed if they do not play ball.
In relation to MH17, it was not a Buk Missile that shot it down. If it was, an obvious vertical smoke trail would have been apparent in the sky for minutes after the debris had fallen.
