/sci/ - Science & Math

so im applying to grad schools soon (US citizen) and my goal is to apply for a phd and i have good grades and gre score for my target programs, but only one semester of research and not sure how good the other two letters of rec will be because of not really doing much extra to interact with professors so i fear i may have to do a masters first.
so because of this i was thinking of applying to one or two safety schools abroad (germany, switzerland) that would be cheaper and with scholarships would be much cheaper than the MS here, but would these be seen the same for phd admissions later on? or if i stayed there and got the full phd in europe would US industry and govt labs look at them the same as a domestic phd?
lastly, i could probably just do a MS at the school i want to do the phd at, would that make it much easier for phd admissions and maybe cost less or take less time?
thanks for any help