WASHINGTON — How much did the 20-year war in Afghanistan cost? Between the initial invasion and 20 years of supporting the Afghan government estimates are in the trillions.
As you would expect, it is an astronomical number. Our Verify experts explained because the war was basically paid on credit every day the cost of the Afghanistan war actually goes up.
Question:
How much did the war in Afghanistan actually cost the United States?
Sources:
- The Congressional Research Service.
- Dr. Catherine Lutz, the co-director of Brown University’s The Costs of War Project.
- Dan Grazier, a veteran and military costs expert from the nonprofit, Project On Government Oversight.
Answer:
The latest estimate is around $2.261 Trillion.
What We Found:
According to The Congressional Research Service, from 2001 to 2021 the Department of Defense allocated $837 billion for military operations.
But, that is just one part of the conflict’s cost.
“We fought this war on credit,” Dan Grazier explained. “This was mostly borrowed money that we used to pay for the war.”
“It has been much more expensive than simply the actual allocations each year of the Congress,” Dr. Lutz continued.
Dr. Lutz runs Brown University’s research project The Costs of War. The project has done research on the total costs of all post-9/11 wars. They found in addition to the budget and debt, the costs continue to pile up for the Afghanistan War.
“Then we have veterans’ care,” Dr. Lutz said. “There are medical and disability costs for several millions of Americans who've gone to war and then were disabled in various ways.”
The total cost they’ve estimated is $2.261 trillion dollars.
For comparison, Jeff Bezo’s new home in D.C. costs $23 million, you could buy 100,000 of those.
The new Audi field cost around $450 million, you could build 5,000 of them.
You could cover D.C.’s $16.9 billion budget for the next 133 years.
However, both of our experts point out this cost of war isn’t just about dollars and cents. It would be cruel and inhumane to not talk about the toll of human lives from the war.
“For Afghanistan alone, the total of direct deaths is over 160,000 people,” Dr. Lutz said. “Almost 50,000 of them are civilians.”
“You want their sacrifice to be worth it,” Grazier said. “But, then we watched all of our hard work, evaporate in 11 days.”
The $2.2621 trillion estimates are up to date this week. Both experts pointed out because this war was paid on credit, it could cost more than $6 trillion by 2050.