?????? The formidable cost of the United States’s War on Terror

After nearly 20 years,?the US's longest war has come to an end. Last Monday, 30 August, minutes before midnight, Maj. Chris Donahue, commander of the 82nd Airborne Division deployed to Afghanistan, boarded a C-17 cargo plane. He was the last US soldier deployed to Afghanistan.

It was the closing of an armed conflict that began with the invasion of Afghanistan on 7 October 2001 in response to the 9/11 attacks. The tragic end of the US mission two decades later makes it advisable to take careful stock of both the objectives achieved and the resources employed. We are talking about perhaps?one of the largest budgetary efforts in history.

According to data from the Watson Institute at Brown University, over the past two decades, the?US government has spent or formally committed some US$5.8 trillion in response to the 9/11 attacks.?This figure includes the cost of military deployments and operations overseas, homeland security efforts within the United States itself, and interest payments on the loans that have financed this entire massive campaign through fiscal year 2023.

But that's not all. The?costs of health care and disability payments?to veterans from this campaign are expected to exceed?US$2.2 trillion?over the next several years. In other words, the total cost of the campaign against terror launched by?President George W. Bush?will exceed?US$8 trillion. This represents more than 35% of the GDP of the United States.?

Thus,?the Afghan campaign alone will close at a cost of more than US$3.4 trillion.?This enormous figure does not include the cost of humanitarian assistance and economic development aid in Afghanistan and Iraq, nor does it include future interest on loans or the costs incurred by the dozens of allies who joined the US campaign. It does not even include the additional security spending items assumed by state and local governments in the US powerhouse.

Why is this important?

In 2001 the United States embarked on a global crusade?that is now, nearly 20 years later, coming to an end with no clear results.?Afghanistan, the theater of operations that has cost American taxpayers the most money,?is now in the hands of the Taliban and heavily infiltrated by terrorist groups?throughout the country.?Iraq has been another great disappointment and these days local politics look more to Tehran than to Washington.?In other scenarios, such as Syria and Libya, the situation is not so different.

The United States has made a titanic budgetary and human effort which, however, has not given it a clear victory. Far from it, it leaves behind a tired army and a country that is psychologically exhausted and frightened in its relationship with the rest of the world.?Perhaps the time has come to consider that military spending alone is not enough.?