The Costs of War Project is a nonpartisan research project based at the

Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs The Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs, soon to be renamed Watson School for International and Public Affairs, is an interdisciplinary research center at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. Its mission is to promote a ...

Brown University Brown University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Providence, Rhode Island, United States. It is the List of colonial colleges, seventh-oldest institution of higher education in the US, founded in 1764 as the ' ...

that seeks to document the direct and indirect human and financial costs of U.S. wars in Iraq and

Afghanistan Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. It is bordered by Pakistan to the Durand Line, east and south, Iran to the Afghanistan–Iran borde ...

and related counterterrorism efforts. The project is the most extensive and comprehensive public accounting of the cost of post- September 11th U.S. military operations compiled to date. The project involves economists, anthropologists, lawyers, humanitarians, and political scientists. It is directed by Catherine Lutz and Stephanie Savell of Brown and

Neta Crawford Neta C. Crawford ( ; born 1961) is an American political scientist. She is Montague Burton Chair in International Relations at the University of Oxford and holds a Professorial Fellowship at Balliol College. Crawford previously served as profes ...

Boston University Boston University (BU) is a Private university, private research university in Boston, Massachusetts, United States. BU was founded in 1839 by a group of Boston Methodism, Methodists with its original campus in Newbury (town), Vermont, Newbur ...

History

The Costs of War Project was established in 2010 by professor of anthropology and international studies at Brown University, Catherine Lutz, and Chair of Political Science at Boston University, Neta Crawford. The project released its first findings in June 2011 and has published continuously since. It is financially supported by the

Carnegie Corporation of New York The Carnegie Corporation of New York is a philanthropic fund established by Andrew Carnegie in 1911 to support education programs across the United States, and later the world. Since its founding, the Carnegie Corporation has endowed or othe ...

, Colombe Foundation, and

Open Society Foundations Open Society Foundations (OSF), formerly the Open Society Institute, is an American grantmaking network founded by business magnate George Soros. Open Society Foundations financially supports civil society groups around the world, with the s ...

. Between 2016 and 2018, U.S. President

Donald Trump Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who is the 47th president of the United States. A member of the Republican Party (United States), Republican Party, he served as the 45 ...

repeatedly cited the expected total costs of the War on Terror through 2050 as calculated by the project, though misrepresented the amount as cumulative spending rather than cumulative and potential future spending. On August 31, 2021, the project's figures for the financial cost of the

War in Afghanistan War in Afghanistan, Afghan war, or Afghan civil war may refer to: *Conquest of Afghanistan by Alexander the Great (330 BC – 327 BC), the conquest of Afghanistan by the Macedonian Empire * Muslim conquests of Afghanistan, a series of campaigns in ...

were cited by U.S. President

Joe Biden Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. (born November 20, 1942) is an American politician who was the 46th president of the United States from 2021 to 2025. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party, he served as the 47th vice p ...

in a speech defending the withdrawal of U.S. troops from the nation. Costs of War was the 2022 recipient of

The US Peace Prize The US Peace Prize is an annual award given by the US Peace Memorial Foundation, a nonprofit organization that recognizes the "most outstanding and prominent American antiwar leaders." The award's first recipient was Cindy Sheehan in 2009. The mi ...

"For crucial research to shed light on the human, environmental, economic, social, and political costs of U.S. wars."

Contributors

Contributors to the project include

Steven Aftergood Steven Aftergood is a critic of U.S. government secrecy policy. He directs the Federation of American Scientists project on Government Secrecy and is the author of the Federation publication '' Secrecy News''. Life and career Aftergood has a BS ...

, Nadje Al-Ali,

Andrew Bacevich Andrew J. Bacevich Jr. (, ; born July 5, 1947) is an American historian specializing in international relations, security studies, American foreign policy, and American diplomatic and military history. He is a professor emeritus of internatio ...

, Catherine L. Besteman, Linda Bilmes,

Cynthia Enloe Cynthia Holden Enloe (born July 16, 1938) is an American political theorist, feminist writer, and professor. She is best known for her work on gender and militarism and for her contributions to the field of feminist international relations. She h ...

Lisa Graves Lisa Graves is a progressive activist who is the executive director of True North Research and president of the board of the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD). She served as executive director for CMD from 2009 to 2017, when she left to co-fou ...

Hugh Gusterson Hugh Gusterson is an English anthropologist at the University of British Columbia and George Washington University. His work focuses on nuclear culture, international security and the anthropology of science. His articles have appeared in the LA ...

, William D. Hartung, James Heintz,

Dahr Jamail Dahr Jamail (born 1968) is an American journalist who was one of the few Embedded journalist, unembedded journalists to report extensively from Iraq during the 2003 invasion of Iraq. He spent eight months in Iraq, between 2003 and 2005, and prese ...

Jessica Stern Jessica Eve Stern (born February 11, 1958) is an American scholar and academic on terrorism. Stern serves as a research professor at the Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University. Earlier she had been a lecturer at Harvard University. ...

, and

Winslow T. Wheeler Winslow T. Wheeler is the Director of the Straus Military Reform Project of the Project On Government Oversight in the Washington, D.C. area.

Human, Monetary Cost

In their most recent calculations, the Costs of War Project estimates that post-9/11 wars participated in by the US have directly killed 905,000 to 940,000, and indirectly 3,6000,000-3,800,000 people though the precise figure remains unknown. This brings the estimated total of direct and indirect deaths to 4,500,000-4,700,000 people in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Syria, and Yemen. In addition to 38,000,000 displaced peoples And exceeded $8 trillion, including $2.2 trillion reserved for veterans' care through 2050. A 2021 report from the project concluded that since September 11, 2001, four times more U.S. veterans and service members had died by suicide than had been killed in combat.

Scope

In its scope, the project accounts for factors official estimates often exclude, including interest expenses, medical care for veterans, and spending by departments other than the

Department of Defense The United States Department of Defense (DoD, USDOD, or DOD) is an executive department of the U.S. federal government charged with coordinating and supervising the six U.S. armed services: the Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force, Space Force, ...

. The study does not include U.S. assistance for operations against

ISIS Isis was a major goddess in ancient Egyptian religion whose worship spread throughout the Greco-Roman world. Isis was first mentioned in the Old Kingdom () as one of the main characters of the Osiris myth, in which she resurrects her sla ...

affiliates in the Philippines, Africa or Europe. In 2018, the project revised its focus to include Africa, accounting for U.S. operations and drone strikes in

Libya Libya, officially the State of Libya, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It borders the Mediterranean Sea to the north, Egypt to Egypt–Libya border, the east, Sudan to Libya–Sudan border, the southeast, Chad to Chad–L ...

and the

Horn of Africa The Horn of Africa (HoA), also known as the Somali Peninsula, is a large peninsula and geopolitical region in East Africa.Robert Stock, ''Africa South of the Sahara, Second Edition: A Geographical Interpretation'', (The Guilford Press; 2004), ...

References

External links