In this issue brief, budget expert Julia Gledhill (Research Analyst, Stimson Center) examines the unprecedented military spending provisions in H.R. 1.

In the two years since October 7, 2023, the United States has incurred significant costs in a broad set of military actions in support of U.S., Israeli, and allied interests in the wider Middle East. Economist Linda J. Bilmes (Senior Lecturer, Harvard University) estimates the costs of these actions through September 2025 to range from U.S. $9.65 - $12.07 billion. 

In the two years since the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack on Israel, the U.S. government has spent $21.7 billion on military aid to Israel, according to policy analyst William D. Hartung (Senior Research Fellow, Quincy Institute). This figure does not include the tens of billions of dollars in arms sales agreements that have been committed for weapons and services that will be paid for and delivered in the years to come.

Economist and Costs of War Director of Programs Heidi Peltier (Senior Research Associate, Brown University) documents how the majority of the federal workforce involves military-related sectors, including the military, homeland security, and more. However, Dr. Peltier shows, military spending is inefficient for employment: spending on education and healthcare would create more jobs while reducing the federal budget.

Policy analysts William D. Hartung (Senior Research Fellow, Quincy Institute) and Stephen Semler (Co-Founder, Security Policy Reform Institute) calculate that in five years, from 2020 to 2024, private firms received $2.4 trillion in contracts from the Pentagon, approximately 54% of the department’s discretionary spending of $4.4 trillion over that period. 

Costs of War published this report in collaboration with the transpartisan think tank Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft.

Economist Linda J. Bilmes (Senior Lecturer, Harvard University) and policy analysts Stephen Semler (Co-Founder, Security Policy Reform Institute) and William D. Hartung (Senior Research Fellow, Quincy Institute) calculate that U.S. spending on Israel’s military operations and related U.S operations in the region total at least $22.76 billion and counting. This estimate is conservative; while it includes approved security assistance funding since October 7, 2023, supplemental funding for regional operations, and an estimated additional cost of operations, it does not include any other economic costs.

Anthropologist Roberto González (Professor, San José State University) examines how America’s military-industrial complex has been rapidly expanding from the Capital Beltway to Silicon Valley. Although much of the Pentagon’s budget is spent on conventional weapons systems, the Defense Department has increasingly sought to adopt AI-enabled systems. Big tech companies, venture capital, and private equity firms benefit from multi-billion dollar Defense contracts, and smaller defense tech startups that “move fast and break things” also receive increased Defense funding. Dr. González's report illustrates how a growing portion of the Defense Department’s spending is going to large, well-known tech firms, including some of the most highly valued corporations in the world.

According to policy analyst William D. Hartung (Senior Research Fellow, Quincy Institute), some experts have argued that China’s military expenditures are far higher than official reporting would suggest, with one Senator claiming that China’s spending is roughly on par with U.S. spending. Mr. Hartung reveals that the U.S. continues to outspend China on defense by a substantial margin.

Anthropologist and Costs of War Director Stephanie Savell (Senior Fellow, Brown University) documents that, between 2021 and 2023, the U.S. government conducted counterterrorism operations in 78 countries. These operations include ground combat in at least nine countries and air strikes in at least four countries during the first three years of the Biden Administration. Though the total number of countries with U.S. counterterrorism operations decreased slightly from 2018-2020 – from 85 countries – the counterterrorism footprint remains remarkably similar to what it was under the first Trump Administration.

Economist and Costs of War Director of Programs Heidi Peltier (Senior Research Associate, Brown University) documents that military spending makes up a dominant share of discretionary spending in the United States; military personnel make up the majority of U.S. government manpower; and military industry is a leading force in the U.S. economy. Dr. Peltier finds that as a result, other elements and capacities of the U.S. government and civilian economy have been weakened, and military industries have gained political power.

According to political scientist Ẹniọlá Ànúolúwapọ́ Ṣóyẹmí (Senior Research Fellow, University of Oxford), the United States government says its goals in Somalia are to eliminate Al-Shabaab and promote peace and reconciliation. But its policies are having the opposite effect, not just contributing to conflict, but ensuring it continues in perpetuity.

Political scientist and Costs of War co-founder Neta Crawford (Professor, University of Oxford) calculates the total costs of the war in Iraq and Syria, which are expected to exceed half a million human lives and $2.89 trillion. This budgetary figure includes costs to date, estimated at about $1.79 trillion, and the costs of veterans’ care through 2050. Since the United States invaded Iraq in 2003, between 550,000-580,000 people have been killed in Iraq and Syria — the current locations of the United States’ Operation Inherent Resolve — and several times as many may have died due to indirect causes such as preventable diseases. More than 7 million people from Iraq and Syria are currently refugees, and nearly 8 million people are internally displaced in the two countries.

 Lyle Goldstein (Director of the China Initiative and Senior Fellow, Watson School of International and Public Affairs, Brown University) writes that if the U.S. and NATO increase their military spending and conventional forces in Europe, the weakness of Russian conventional military forces could prompt Moscow to rely more heavily on its nuclear forces. This paper lays out the case for why the United States should not engage in threat inflation when it comes to Russia, or use Russia as an excuse to expand the military budget.

Examining data before the U.S. war in Afghanistan and after the U.S. withdrawal, this infographic displays indicators of poverty, food insecurity, child malnutrition, women's rights, U.S. spending, and more. Created by the researchers at Costs of War.

Economist and Costs of War Director of Programs Heidi Peltier (Senior Research Associate, Brown University) examined how over the 20-year period of the U.S. intervention in Afghanistan, the U.S. Department of Defense paid various companies about $108 billion in contracts for work performed in the country. This is in addition to the trillions of dollars spent on Department of Defense contracts performed in the U.S. over that period – and does not include other goods and services produced in the U.S. and used in the war in Afghanistan, such as weapons. What’s more, this figure is just a fraction of the over $14 trillion in Pentagon spending since the start of the war in Afghanistan in total, with one-third to one-half of the total going to military contractors.

 Heidi Peltier, Economist and Costs of War Director of Programs (Senior Research Associate, Brown University), illustrates that while some lawmakers are calling on Congress to increase defense spending even above the historically high level requested by the Biden administration, citing current high rates of inflation, there is no reason to increase the fiscal year 2023 defense budget to account for current high prices for consumer goods and energy. 

Pentagon spending has totaled over $14 trillion since the start of the war in Afghanistan, with one-third to one-half of the total going to military contractors, writes policy analyst William D. Hartung.

The United States, over the last two decades, has already spent and the Biden administration has requested about $5.8 trillion in reaction to the 9/11 attacks, calculates Political scientist and Costs of War co-founder Neta Crawford. This includes the estimated direct and indirect costs of spending in the United States post-9/11 war zones, homeland security efforts for counter terrorism, and interest payments on war borrowing.

As veterans continue to bear huge physical and mental costs from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the costs of caring for post-9/11 war vets will reach between $2.2 and $2.5 trillion by 2050 – most of which has not yet been paid. The U.S. may shortchange its promises to these veterans if the government does not make adequate budgetary commitments.

Over nearly two decades, government officials, private companies, and conservative
think tanks have sold the idea that military contractors are a cost reducer, yet in reality, the
growth in military contracting—or what Heidi Peltier calls the “Camo Economy”—has actually
increased the overall cost of this country’s military operations.

Throughout the 18 years the U.S. has been engaged in the “Global War on Terror,” mainly in Iraq and
Afghanistan, the government has financed this war by borrowing funds rather than through alternative
means such as raising taxes or issuing war bonds.

Excess military spending could be shifted to domestic
spending that supports green manufacturing activity in the
areas of the U.S. that have been hardest hit by declines in
manufacturing employment since 2000.

Since late 2001, the United States has appropriated and is obligated to spend an
estimated $6.4 Trillion through Fiscal Year 2020 in costs related to the post-9/11 wars—an estimated $5.4 Trillion in appropriations in current dollars and
an additional minimum of $1 Trillion for US obligations to care for the veterans.

Afghanistan ranks as one of the most landmine- and unexploded ordnance-impacted
countries in the world, even after thirty years of clearance operations.

Although the United States has not formally declared war in Somalia and the
US Congress has not formally approved US military engagements in Somalia, US
intervention in Somalia has rapidly expanded under the Trump Administration. 

The United States has appropriated and is obligated to spend an estimated $5.9
trillion (in current dollars) on the war on terror through Fiscal Year 2019, including
direct war and war-related spending and obligations for future spending on post-
9/11 war veterans.

Public access to information about government spending is presumed – and
required – by the US Constitution. In practice, however, public access to budget information is imperfect and
incomplete.

This report provides estimates for how the United States government has paid for
its wars, from the War of 1812 through the current post-9/11 “Global War on Terror” (Iraq,
Afghanistan, etc.), and addresses the relationship between war finance
and inequality.

The wartime budgetary process for the post-9/11 wars from 2001 to 2017 is the largest
single deviation from standard budgetary practice in US history.

Is military spending the best way to create jobs? What do we sacrifice by
increasing defense spending? In economics, what we lose by pursuing a particular strategy
is called an “opportunity cost.”

Donald Trump’s recent decision to launch a cruise missile strike at a Syrian air base
in response to a chemical weapons attack that killed at least 70 people is the latest sign that
his administration is rapidly departing from his campaign pledges to pursue a policy of
military restraint in the Middle East.

Although it is rare to have a precise accounting of
the costs of war — especially of long wars — one can get a sense of the rough scale of the costs
by surveying the major categories of spending.

The United States, and to a lesser extent its allies, the UN, NGOs, and the World
Bank, have injected billions of dollars into what is commonly termed the “reconstruction”
of Afghanistan since the war began in 2001.

The United States federal government is expected to foot the bill for wars abroad.
But some costs devolve to and are borne by state governments, particularly costs
associated with care for veterans. 

Federal spending dedicated to fighting wars over the past 14 years has resulted in
lost employment opportunities of between one and three million jobs.

A full accounting of war's burdens cannot be placed in columns on a ledger. Yet, the expenditures noted on
government ledgers are necessary to apprehend, even as they are so large as to be almost
incomprehensible.

This paper describes the levels and
types of funding of the reconstruction process in Iraq, reconstruction needs, and what the reconstruction
efforts have accomplished.

As of February 2013, 50,444 service members were officially counted as surviving
casualties of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The Iraqi economy since 2003 shows contrasting and conflicting signs of growth and challenges.

Military activities in Iraq and Afghanistan have entered their ninth and tenth years
respectively and have produced $1.1 trillion in direct costs through 2010.

There are many uncertainties, unknowns, and biases that cloud the simple question: What is the Department of Defense’s cost for the post-9/11 wars?

This paper estimates the direct costs of spending on Homeland Security given the response to
9/11.

Military spending is a source of job creation. But what is the opportunity cost?

The history of previous wars shows that the cost of caring for war veterans rises for several decades and
peaks in 30-40 years or more after a conflict.

Each year since the “war on terror” began, Congress has appropriated money for “international
assistance,” primarily to Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Report after report and study after study begins by pointing out that the American
military’s post 9/11 engagements in Iraq and Afghanistan are taxing service members and
their families like none before.

When we think of the public resources that are directed towards the military, we
often think in terms of current budget expenditures. However, there is another category of
public resources worth considering – the total value of public assets devoted to
military uses.

The 2000s have been good years to be a military contractor.

This updates the previous versions of this paper, then entitled "Job
Opportunity Cost of War.”

The inevitable legacy of the well-worn cycle of war is debt; promises and commitments that extend far
into the future.

A decade after the American invasion of Iraq, health and medical services in the country
remained in shambles.