Keeping plasma going and actually having fusion are two different things. This is an important step to be sure but the Wendelstein is very much an experimental

Keeping plasma going and actually having fusion are two different things. This is an important step to be sure but the Wendelstein is very much an experimental reactor. It's not meant to be something that will ever make large amounts of electricity. Also note that the Wendelstein 7-X project started planning in 1980 and assembly took from 2005 until 2014. A US reactor experiment (the NCSX) was cancelled in 2009 because they couldn't get the required mechanical precision even in a lab setting. Even if we manage to solve the remaining technical challenges to sustained fusion in only five years (ie WAY ahead of the experimental schedule), building a power plant sized version would definitely take a decade or two including all the planning and actual construction. More budget will probably help speed up the timeline somewhat but probably not that much. If you truly had 1/10th of the military budget to spend you could probably get a much bigger bang for your buck if you spend it on solar panels, batteries and on shoring up coastal defences/stormwater systems/building insulation/etc etc etc. The boring stuff, rather than the "silver bullet" projects like fusion power plants.