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.
Ben Armbruster is the Managing Editor of Responsible Statecraft. He has more than a decade of experience working at the intersection of politics, foreign policy, and media. Ben previously held senior editorial and management positions at Media Matters, ThinkProgress, ReThink Media, and Win Without War.
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)
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.
As of Thursday, the purported terms of the U.S.-proposed ceasefire deal were shared on social media, although neither Hamas nor Israel has publicly committed to it.
Trump’s diplomatic theatrics extend beyond a possible Gaza ceasefire. Instead of leveraging U.S. military assistance to end Israel's bombardment and humanitarian blockade of the Strip, Trump signaled he might condition continued American security assistance on Israel halting ongoing corruption proceedings against Netanyahu. “The United States of America spends Billions of Dollar [sic] a year, far more than on any other Nation, protecting and supporting Israel,” Trump posted on his Truth Social. “We are not going to stand for this.”
By publicly linking U.S. military support — Israel’s lifeline — to Netanyahu’s personal legal battles, Trump is effectively exerting pressure on Israel’s judiciary, a remarkable intervention in its domestic affairs on the prime minister’s behalf. Such bold statements are meant not only to influence Netanyahu's decisions, but also to focus public and international attention around Trump’s preferred outcomes.
Meanwhile, the humanitarian crisis in Gaza worsens daily. The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), backed by Israel and the U.S., which this week announced it was providing $30 million to the group, faces severe international condemnation. On Thursday, reports emerged that U.S. military contractors have been firing on starving civilians, echoing previous reports from IDF soldiers that they were ordered to shoot at desperate Palestinians seeking food aid.
Over 170 humanitarian and human rights NGOs, including international heavyweights like Oxfam, Save the Children, and Doctors Without Borders, have called for the immediate shutdown of the GHF, pointing to the deaths of more than 600 Palestinian civilians near GHF aid distribution hubs since the controversial group began operating with IDF support in late May. Adding credibility to these criticisms, the Swiss government recently dissolved GHF's Geneva branch, citing grave operational and legal violations amid ongoing reports of violence at GHF sites. These developments highlight the tragic politicization and increasing danger associated with humanitarian relief in Gaza.
Trump also appears determined to expand the Abraham Accords. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told the press that when Trump met Syria’s new president, Ahmed al-Sharaa, in Saudi Arabia last month, he asked the former Islamist insurgent to normalize relations with Israel and then lifted some targeted U.S. sanctions on Syria. Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar echoed this sentiment, publicly supporting expansion of the Accords to include Syria and Lebanon, while firmly reasserting Israel’s claims to the Golan Heights.
Damascus confirmed that it was engaged in both direct negotiations and UAE-facilitated backchannels with Jerusalem. However, much like Trump’s ceasefire messaging, the Syria angle risks being primarily political theater. Expanding the Accords without tangible progress on Palestinian rights or ending the Gaza siege will ring hollow, serving mainly to bolster the domestic political positions of both Trump and Netanyahu while masking the lack of meaningful steps toward peace.
While regional actors, especially America’s Gulf allies, warily watch the fragile ceasefire between Israel and Iran, Israeli media report that Netanyahu intends to seek Trump’s backing for another attack on Iran. The recent 12-day war with Iran has strengthened Netanyahu politically at home, allowing him to emerge as the bold leader who confronted Iran rather than the embattled and widely distrusted prime minister who failed to prevent Hamas’s October 7 attacks or secure the release of Israeli hostages still held in Gaza.
After narrowly surviving a no-confidence vote on June 11 that exposed his political vulnerabilities, Netanyahu leveraged his attack on Iran conflict to consolidate power. Some observers hope this newfound strength could encourage Netanyahu to finally end the war on Gaza, given that he may be less beholden to the most extreme right-wing members of his coalition. However, others fear his renewed confidence might prompt even more aggressive regional actions, further destabilizing an already volatile situation.
Ultimately, Monday’s meeting may amount to political theater — a high-profile, but substantively empty spectacle as Israel continues to use American weapons to blockade and bombard Palestinians in Gaza. Without genuine U.S. pressure to end illegal military aggression, halt ongoing atrocities, and genuinely pursue peace and Palestinian rights, megaphone diplomacy will remain little more than noise, amplifying tensions rather than resolving deep-rooted conflicts.
The Bunker appears originally at the Project on Government Oversight and is republished here with permission.
A pair of stories with contrasting narratives
It was the best of times (“We blew Iran’s nuclear-weapons complex to smithereens!”), it was the worst of times (“Psst — we’re submitting a proposed defense budget for next year even smaller than this year’s”). That’s why last Thursday there was an 8 a.m. all-hands-on-deck for a rare press conference (only the second in five months) by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. And a mere peep later in the day about his proposed 2026 budget.
This is performance politics worthy of the Wallendas. President Donald Trump can declare that the U.S. “completely and totally obliterated” Tehran’s atomic enterprise to bits even before the B-2 bombers that carried it out had returned to their home base in Missouri. Unfortunately, skeptical Pentagon intelligence analysts cast doubts on that certitude. That’s their job. Predictably, Trump came down on the Pentagon reporters who relayed the views of the Defense Intelligence Agency like a petulant kindergarten bully. He predictably commanded that his sidekick — that would be the SECDEF — denounce the doubters.
Which he did with a relish that is decidedly unappetizing: “You cheer against Trump so hard, it’s like in your DNA and in your blood to cheer against Trump because you want him not to be successful so bad, you have to cheer against the efficacy of these strikes.”
Let’s be clear — neither side’s assessment was rock-solid. It’s simply too early to tell. Trump shouldn’t have issued his “completely” claim so soon. And reporters should have treated more gingerly that initial DIA bomb-damage assessment, which apparently turned out to be a “low confidence” worst-case projection.
Just because Trump jumped the gun is no reason for reporters to follow suit.
The same day, the Pentagon rolled out its 2026 budget request seeking $848 billion. That’s actually lower than this year’s $831 billion, when taking inflation into account. Trump’s pledge to spend $1 trillion on defense next year will only happen if Congress approves a $113 billion add-on now under debate. Toting up all administration-wished-for 2026 national-security spending, including that one-time bonus, plus that spent on nuclear weapons by the Energy Department, the total rises — surprise! — to $1.01 trillion. But where such future annual $100 billion plus-ups will come from remains unknown, and unknowable.
Unlike publicly pummeling the press, the Defense Department’s budget unveiling was a decidedly low-key affair. “The announcement was a stark departure from past budget roll-outs, which have traditionally included an overview briefing by the Pentagon’s comptroller, and sometimes the deputy defense secretary and vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, followed by separate briefings by each military department,” Meghann Myers pointed out at Defense One. That’s probably because the Pentagon finds itself too embarrassed to confess to the budgetary sleight-of-math required to reach Trump’s trillion-dollar target.
War of the words
Trump has been ruminating again about returning the Department of Defense to its original name: the Department of War. The Bunker, dedicated to ending decades of defense opacity (“obscurity of sense”) and obfuscation (“to be evasive, unclear, or confusing”), is all for the change.
The U.S. long had a War Department (largely the Army and, later, its fledgling air force) and a Navy Department. But as the threat posed by the Soviet Union grew, Congress combined them and created the National Military Establishment in 1947, along with the Air Force. There was just one problem. The U.S. military loves its acronyms, and the new “NME” acronym sounded too much like “enemy.” So, in 1949, the Department of Defense was born.
The name change has arguably led to an expansive and flabby understanding of the role of the nation’s military. The Lycra-like label has been stretched to cover humanitarian ops, mission creep, nation-building, and forever-rising budgets. In contrast, a cabinet agency laser-focused on waging war could lead to a leaner, cheaper force. And that might not be the only change. The Bunker’s home, here at the Center for Defense Information at the Project On Government Oversight, would also face a tough choice. “Does CDI,” POGO pooh-bah Scott Amey ponders, “become the Center for War Information?”
Varmints pester Air Force base
North Dakota’s Minot Air Force Base, home to nuclear-capable B-52 bombers, is being invaded by growing burrowing brigades of what the locals call dakrats (short for Dakota rat), a type of ground squirrel. “A team of Air Force subject matter experts and representatives from Minot AFB Homes are meeting regularly to coordinate a more active response,” the base posted on its Facebook page June 23. Residents “can continue to use traps in their backyard,” but reinforcements are on the way. The base plans to roll out “a more comprehensive trapping plan” soon, and pledges “increased resourcing for fall and spring mitigation efforts to significantly decrease the on-base [dakrat] population.”
This is not a new problem. “Since the removal of their natural predators on base,” a 2019 Air Force story noted, “their population has significantly increased in numbers, causing damages to mission-essential infrastructure and homes across the base.” The base’s estimated 10,000+ dakrats were “degrading runways, platforms, foundations, and housing.” Deploying gas, other poisons, flooding, and trapping plainly didn’t lead to their complete and total obliteration.
Commenters responding to the base’s post on the latest vermin surge had their own suggestions on how to get rid of the critters. They ranged from bubble gum (Bazooka Joe brand, The Bunker presumes), to “bad donut dough,” to A-10 attack planes, to B-2 bombers. “Trap a few and microchip them to track to the colony,” one recommended, “then use a bunker-buster.”
Congress wants the Pentagon to build an ammunition plant in the Philippines to deal with the threat posted by China, USNI News’ Aaron Matthew Lariosa reported June 24.
The Pentagon has changed the name of the USNS Harvey Milk, named for the assassinated gay-rights activist, to the USNS Oscar V. Peterson, a sailor posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor for saving his stricken vessel during World War II, Riley Ceder reported June 27 in Navy Times.
The Air Force is diverting money from its new and troubled $141 billion Sentinel ICBM program to refurbish that Qatari 747 that President Trump plans to use as Air Force One, Rachel S. Cohen reported June 27 in Air & Space Forces Magazine.
Thanks for reading The Bunker this week, secure in the knowledge that we would never divert the cost of your subscription to line our own (threadbare) pockets. Please forward this on to a friend so they can subscribe here.
keep readingShow less
Top photo credit: Brett McGurk (Kuhlmann /MSC/Wikimedia Commons) and Lloyd Austin ((DoD Photo by U.S. Air Force Staff Sgt. Jack Sanders).
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.
It won’t have too much trouble — Clarion Strategies is equipped with an all-star roster of Biden administration officials that, in addition to Austin, includes former Secretary of Veterans Affairs Denis McDonough, former Assistant Secretary of Defense for Indo-Pacific Security Affairs Ely Ratner, and former U.S. Permanent Representative to NATO Julianne Smith.
The news troubled two members of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Rick Scott (R-Fla.), enough to write Austin a letter on June 30 voicing their "serious questions" about how decisions he made in office "may have benefitted the defense contractors and other companies that may now be [his] clients.”
There is a cooling-off period that prohibits executive branch officials — typically either one or two years depending on seniority — from directly lobbying their former agencies. However, Warren noted that “Austin appears to have found a loophole by serving as an ‘adviser’ rather than a registered lobbyist.” This loophole, known as the “strategic consulting loophole,” allows some former officials to avoid waiting until the cool-down period for lobbying activities is over simply by serving as an “advisor,” meaning they can still coordinate campaigns and advise lobbyists.
As long as Secretary Austin doesn’t engage in direct lobbying, he is cleared to work for any military contractor that comes knocking.
Warren and Scott denounced Austin for reneging on his 2021 promise by invoking this loophole and demanded that his new firm disclose a list of clients and contracts. “We ask that you reconsider your actions," they wrote. "If you are unwilling to do that, you should at least provide transparency to the public about your new role.”
President Biden tried to crack down on this kind of shadow lobbying, barring certain senior officials such as Secretary Austin from this loophole. However, Trump revoked this executive order on Day One of his second term. For all of Trump’s lambasting on the campaign trail of the revolving door as a “big problem”, his decision to revoke the ethics rules helped Biden administration officials race to lucrative private sector gigs in record time. “It really does a huge favor for Biden administration political appointees,” Rob Kelner, a partner at the Covington & Burling law (and lobbying) firm, told Politico.
Craig Holman, Public Citizen’s Capitol Hill lobbyist on ethics, lobbying, and campaign finance rules, explained in an email to RS that revoking the rules forces the system to rely on weaker, preexisting revolving-door restrictions, which have no limitations on “strategic consulting.” If anything, Holman said, “the law encourages this form of shadow lobbying.”
Several other Biden defense policy officials are following in Austin’s footsteps and working for strategic advisory firms.
Faiq Raza, the Biden Pentagon’s Capitol Hill liaison for acquisition affairs is now a senior adviser to The Roosevelt Group, a consulting firm with noted expertise in defense, military installations, and the appropriations process. According to OpenSecrets, the group currently has nine clients in the defense sector, including Airbus and RTX (formerly known as Raytheon). Biden’s Army Acquisition Chief Doug Bush founded his own consulting firm, DRB Strategies. After four years of leading Army acquisitions, Bush’s new firm deals in government contracting, acquisitions, and “legislative strategies for companies focused on national security.”
“One could only hope that former Biden officials sincerely believed in the revolving door restrictions that they signed on to and would voluntarily live by those principles,” said Holman. “But the new consulting positions of former Secretary Austin and others suggest that is not the case.”
Other Biden defense officials are getting more creative, working for venture capitalists and banks with close ties to the defense industry.
Less than two months after leaving office, Austin’s former chief of staff, Derek Chollet, was tapped by JPMorganChase to lead the bank’s new Center for Geopolitics. According to the advisory unit’s website, the Center aims to help the bank’s clients respond to the shifting geopolitical landscape “through events, webinars, calls, in-person small groups, and one-on-one conversations.”
The Center’s inaugural report, signed by Chollet, highlighted the need to rapidly rebuild, modernize, and expand the U.S. defense industrial base in order to maintain strategic influence internationally. The report specifically argued that such efforts require a larger defense budget and the creation of multi-year procurement packages for weapons such as HIMARS and PAC-3 interceptor missiles. These weapons are built by a client of JPMorgan Chase Bank, Lockheed Martin, which enjoys a lending agreement with the bank worth $3.5 billion.
Brett McGurk, Biden’s top Middle East advisor, waited only three weeks after leaving the Biden administration to join Lux Capital as a Venture Partner. Lux Capital is a venture capital firm invested in defense technology companies such as Anduril, which specializes in autonomous weapons. In its announcement, Lux gushed that McGurk’s “unique combination of diplomatic experience and forging strategic partnerships are [sic] invaluable, as we continue to back founders building transformative companies that are reshaping the world.”
McGurk’s stature also landed him a CNN Global Affairs Analyst position, where he is simply introduced as “Former White House Coordinator for the Middle East and North Africa,” leaving out his new role at Lux. During the last few weeks, McGurk used his CNN platform to make the case for bombing Iran. “So if [you] want to destroy Fordow — and at the end of this I think Fordow has to be taken care of either diplomatically or through a military strike — it really is the U.S. military option.”
In case there was any doubt to where Lux’s interests lie, the venture capital firm’s co-founder Josh Wolfe said on X he hopes for the “day we can make our first Lux investments in a free + open Iran.”
Lastly, some Biden defense officials have opted to simply cut out any middleman and are already working directly for Pentagon contractors.
In May, Aerospace Corporation, selected two top Biden Pentagon officials to serve on its board of trustees — Bill LaPlante, the former Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment, and Frank Calvelli, Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Space Acquisition and Integration. In June, former undersecretary of the Army Gabe Camarillo leveraged his experience into a Senior Vice President of Defense Technology Solutions position at KBR — a notable army contractor — overseeing a $2 billion budget to support “land, sea, air and cyberspace defense capabilities for the Department of Defense, UK Ministry of Defence, and Australian Defence Force.”
And just last week, Heidi Shyu, the Biden administration’s Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering, joined the board of Areté, a cyberdefense firm that currently holds contracts with the Navy and the Defense Intelligence Agency.
With Biden’s Pentagon racing through the revolving door at breakneck speed, the list goes on and on. Whether it’s an advisory firm engaging in shadow lobbying, a venture capital firm, or even a Pentagon contractor, it’s dealer’s choice.
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.