Wartime Contract Spending in Afghanistan Since 2001
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, according to our latest research. 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.
Over one-third of the contract spending went to “undisclosed” recipients – domestic and foreign businesses who are not uniquely identifiable in the publicly available contracting databases – USASpending.gov and the Federal Procurement Data System (FPDS).
Of the $108 billion spent in Afghanistan from fiscal years 2002-2022, over 40 percent went to the 14 largest companies, which each received over one billion dollars in total contract spending, with the largest receiving over $13.5 billion. There were also thousands of smaller contracts.
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Heidi Peltier has been a contributing author to the Costs of War project since its inception in 2010 and joined the staff in 2019. Peltier is an economist who has written on military-related topics including the employment impacts of military and other public spending; military contracting, or what she calls the “Camo Economy;” and other areas at the intersection of militarism and public finance. She has also written widely on the employment impacts of a transition to a low-carbon economy, and is the author of the book, Creating a Clean-Energy Economy: How Investments in Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Can Create Jobs in a Sustainable Economy. Heidi has been interviewed in print, radio, and podcasts regarding her research on the employment impacts of military spending as well as on her research on the clean energy economy. She has presented her work at the U.N. Climate Change Conference, to various public officials at the state and federal levels in the U.S., and at conferences domestically and abroad. Heidi has served as a consultant with the U.S. Department of Energy, the United Nations Industrial Development Organization, the International Labor Organization, and various other organizations.
