if the "smallest line item" to deal with a single balloon is a single use >$400k piece of equipment then there's a real problem. There have been multiple balloons this week, based on what you're saying each one is costing millions of dollars, which is clearly insane.
I'm also dubious that the $400k piece of equipment actually cost $400k, given that the various military contractors all seem to be super profitable.
I think your estimate of each mission costing millions of dollars per mission is not insane. You can divide the budget of the Airforce by all the missions it flies each year (leave this exercise to the reader :D).
The US Airforce budget is 194 billion per year. That is $531 million per day. I would be surprised if it wasn't millions per mission
