Recent Findings

• From December 2023 to May 2025, 46 United States airstrike incidents resulted in at least 576 civilian casualties: 213 people were killed and 363 were injured, including 50 children and 25 women. The bombs hit civilian structures such as homes, shops, farms, residential neighborhoods, and infrastructure, violating various rules and standards of international humanitarian law.
• As of May 18, 2026, the extra fuel costs to U.S. consumers since the start of the Iran war, tops $40 billion, or more than $300 per household.
• U.S. spending on Operation Southern Spear and Operation Absolute Resolve in Venezuela, the Caribbean, and the Eastern Pacific cost at least $4.7 billion from August 1, 2025-March 31, 2026.
• The U.S. has spent $260 billion a year countering China militarily since 2012, following then-President Obama's "pivot to Asia". Anti-Asian and anti-Chinese American racism has intensified along with the militarized U.S.-China rivalry.
• 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.
• The U.S. has spent an additional $9.65 – $12.07 billion on military operations in Yemen and the wider region since October 7, 2023, for a total of $31.35 – $33.77 billion and counting in U.S. spending on the post-10/7 wars.
• As of October 3, 2025, 67,075 people in Gaza have been killed and 169,430 people injured according to the Gaza Ministry of Health. These 236,505 casualties constitute more than 10% of the pre-war population in Gaza.
• At least 5.27 million people have fled or been forced to leave their homes (as of early September 2025) in the post-Oct.7, 2023 wars in Gaza, Iran, Israel, Lebanon, and the West Bank. This total includes an estimated 1.85 million children under 18.
• Military spending produces an average of 5 jobs per $1 million. The same investment in other sectors creates more employment - nearly 13 jobs in education, 9 in healthcare, and 7-8 in infrastructure and clean energy.
• 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.
• The expanding tools of political influence used by the arms industry include extensive lobbying, millions in campaign donations, the revolving door, funding think tanks, and involvement in government advisory committees.
• U.S.-backed Israeli military operations since Oct. 7, 2023 will lead to far higher indirect death than direct death rates.
• Over the course of the war in Afghanistan (2001-2021), 24% of U.S. women service members and 1.9% of men experienced sexual assault.
• The “Military-Industrial Complex” is enmeshed with Silicon Valley. A growing portion of Pentagon spending goes to large tech firms.
• War contributes significantly to climate change: The U.S. Defense Department is one of the world’s top greenhouse gas emitters.
• Official U.S. discourses about security threats from China and Russia are characterized by threat inflation.
• Americans are inundated with cultural products that promote militarism – many of them influenced by the Pentagon. From movies to sporting events, the entertainment we consume normalizes war, reducing reflection about U.S. policy choices and their consequences.

United States Post-9/11 Wars 

Overview of War Costs

• The wars have been accompanied by erosions in civil liberties and human rights at home and abroad.
• The U.S. government is conducting counterterror activities in 78 countries.
• An estimated 3.6-3.8 million people have died indirectly in post-9/11 war zones, bringing the total death toll to at least 4.5-4.7 million and counting.
• At least 940,000 people have died due to direct war violence, including civilians, armed forces on all sides, contractors, journalists, and humanitarian workers.
• U.S. policymakers scarcely considered alternatives to war in the aftermath of 9/11 or in debating the invasion of Iraq. Many of those alternatives are still available.
• The cost of the post-9/11 wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Syria, and elsewhere totals about $8 trillion. This does not include future interest costs on borrowing for the wars.
• 38 million people have been displaced by the post-9/11 wars in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Yemen, Somalia, and the Philippines.
• 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.
• Post-9/11 war veterans are suffering a mental health crisis. At least four times as many active duty personnel and war veterans of post-9/11 conflicts have died of suicide than in combat.
• The ripple effects on the U.S. economy have also been significant, including job loss and interest rate increases.