In the wake of immense budget cutbacks, the United States military presence in Europe was recently forced to ask a NATO ally, the British, to borrow a few of their helicopters for training exercises.

This is startling news. Add to the fact that there are no more American tanks on the continent, and you have something to really think about (notice we didn’t write “worry”, that’s entirely up to you).

The U.S. is the most expensive and expansive military presence on the globe. So when they ask to use a lesser nation’s battle “rides” it’s, well, difficult to fathom?

Remember this television commercial, from the early 1990s?

The fancy mustard? Right.

The British ask each other for condiments. And military vehicles. You don’t see an American in that commercial, do you? And there’s a very good reason for that.

Not to mention, this helicopter story is the equivalent of one of these hoity-toity types in the mustard commercial pulling over to the side of the road to ask a hobo pushing a shopping cart for a little spice. It’s preposterous.

But it’s indicative of problem that’s only getting worse with the rising Russian-Ukrainian tension and a tiring, taxing duty on the American troops that are stationed in Europe (a number that’s declined to a third since 2012) and are supplied with fewer and fewer resources.

More from The Telegraph and an outspoken Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges, the U.S. Army’s commander in Europe:

Lt General Ben Hodges, the US Army’s commander in Europe, said allies had increasingly been called upon to loan out vehicles and supplies, and that the use of British helicopters had been “essential”.

Gen Hodges told the Telegraph that America no longer has the “intelligence capacity to do what we need to do” and that, as a result, he had been “surprised” by Russia’s actions in Ukraine and in Syria.

“We don’t have that many Russian speakers anymore,” he said. “I personally have been surprised by every single snap exercise and when they went into Syria. We just do not have the capability to see and track what they’re doing the way they used to.”

Oh, and he wasn’t finished. How about this for a zinger?:

“The mission’s still the same,” Gen Hodges told the New York Times. “So we have to figure out how you make 30,000 (troops) feel like 300,000.”