Follow us on social

50937220531_acb32a30a9_o

New report estimates $2.5 trillion for post-9/11 war vets care

The findings come amid calls in Washington for the US to remain in Afghanistan indefinitely.

Reporting | Asia-Pacific

Amid the tragic scenes from Kabul this week in the aftermath of the Taliban’s complete takeover of Afghanistan, those on cable news programs and beyond claiming the U.S. military should never have left are rarely, if ever, asked key questions about what that actually would mean in practice.

How long would we have to stay? And at what cost? 

Aside from American military casualties that would result in the likely event that the Taliban begin attacking U.S. troops again after having broken the 2020 Doha peace deal, or the billions upon billions it would cost to maintain an indefinite presence in Afghanistan propping up an illegitimate government rotted to the core with corruption, a new report from Brown University’s Costs of War projects points to perhaps another hidden price tag: long-term care for veterans. 

The report estimates that from 2001 to 2050, it will cost U.S. taxpayers between $2.2 and 2.5 trillion to care for veterans of America’s post-9/11 wars, and that “the majority of the costs associated with caring for post-9/11 veterans has not yet been paid and will continue to accrue long into the future.” 

According to the Costs of War project, “Expenditures to care for veterans doubled from 2.4 percent of the federal budget in FY 2001 to 4.9 percent in FY 2020, even as the total number of living veterans from all U.S. wars declined from 25.3 million to 18.5 million.” The total costs won’t peak “until decades after the conflict, as veterans’ needs increase with age.”

The report recommends establishing a fund to track and set aside money that will be needed for the long-term care of these vets. 


President Joe Biden talks with Ret. Michigan Army National Guard Cpl. Bobby Body Friday, Jan. 29, 2021, at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland. Cpl. Body was injured in February of 2006 while deployed to Iraq where he suffered a left above knee amputation and multiple other soft tissue injuries from a mounted improvised explosive device. (Official White House Photo by Adam Schultz)
Reporting | Asia-Pacific
Trump Netanyahu in Washington
Top photo credit: Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu (Joshua Sukoff / Shutterstock.com)

Netanyahu returns to DC — in triumph or with more to ask?

Middle East

On Monday, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu will arrive in Washington for his third visit of Trump’s second term. Today also marks 21 months of Israel’s war on Gaza. The purpose of the visit remains unclear, and speculation abounds: will Trump and Netanyahu announce a real ceasefire in Gaza? Will Syria join the Abraham Accords? Or might Trump greenlight even broader Israeli action against Iran?

Before Netanyahu’s visit, Trump posted an ultimatum on Truth Social, claiming Israel had agreed to a 60-day ceasefire. He urged Hamas to accept the terms, threatening that “it will only get worse” if it doesn’t. Although Trump intended to pressure Hamas, reiterating a longstanding narrative that portrays the group as the obstacle to peace, Hamas has long maintained that it will only accept a ceasefire if it is part of a process that leads to a permanent end to Israel’s war and its complete withdrawal from the enclave. Netanyahu, for his part, remains adamant that the war must continue until Hamas is eliminated, a goal that even the IDF has described as not militarily viable.

keep readingShow less
POGO The Bunker
Top image credit: Project on Government Oversight

Yes to 'Department of War' name change

Military Industrial Complex

The Bunker appears originally at the Project on Government Oversight and is republished here with permission.

keep readingShow less
Bidenites make soft landing in heart of lucrative war industry
Top photo credit: Brett McGurk (Kuhlmann /MSC/Wikimedia Commons) and Lloyd Austin ((DoD Photo by U.S. Air Force Staff Sgt. Jack Sanders).

Bidenites make soft landing in heart of lucrative war industry

Military Industrial Complex

In 2021, Ret. Gen. Lloyd Austin declared he had “no intent to be a lobbyist.” On June 3, less than six months after leaving office, former President Joe Biden’s Secretary of Defense announced that he would be launching a new strategic advisory firm called “Clarion Strategies.” Some Senators allege this is simply lobbying by another name.

A pitch deck obtained by Politico noted that Clarion Strategies’ name is a “nod to its aim to equip clients with the clarity they need to navigate geopolitical upheaval driven by the war in Ukraine, advancements in defense technology like AI and unmanned systems, global trade shifts and emerging alliances among U.S. adversaries like Russia, China, North Korea and China.” In other words, the new firm is very much hoping to court clients from the defense industry.

keep readingShow less

LATEST

QIOSK

Newsletter

Subscribe now to our weekly round-up and don't miss a beat with your favorite RS contributors and reporters, as well as staff analysis, opinion, and news promoting a positive, non-partisan vision of U.S. foreign policy.