Follow us on social

2001-12-10t120000z_1745375631_rp2driqvfvab_rtrmadp_3_afghanistan-attacks-marines

New post-9/11 wars cost estimate: $8 trillion

The US military role in Afghanistan is over, but the costs will continue to mount as the forever wars rage on.

Analysis | Reporting | Asia-Pacific

In anticipation of the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, Brown University’s Costs of War Project on Wednesday published an “updated estimates on the most comprehensive and widely-cited assessments of the financial and human costs of the past 20 years of war.” 

The Project’s last update in 2019 estimated that the post-9/11 wars cost more than $6 trillion and 800,000 lives. But its new assessment has found that between 897,000 and 929,000 have been “directly killed,” while the United States has appropriated and obligated to spend more than $8 trillion. 

The latest report comes as President Biden ended America’s 20-year war in Afghanistan, which was estimated to have cost U.S. taxpayers $2.313 trillion, while Washington has so-far spent $2.058 trillion on the wars in Iraq and Syria. But while the U.S. war in Afghanistan is now over, the so-called “forever wars” are still ongoing throughout the region in places like Yemen and the Horn of Africa, where the Project estimates that roughly $355 billion have been spent. 

The Project’s estimate includes the cost of veterans’ care from 2001 to 2050, which according to its report from August, will cost U.S. taxpayers between $2.2 and 2.5 trillion. 

“Many people don’t know the extraordinary toll these wars take, not just the cost of deploying troops, not just the cost in terms of human lives, but the costs in terms of benefits and in terms of our obligations for decades to come,” said Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) in prepared remarks for the Cost of War Project’s online event launching their new findings. “Had we not stayed in Afghanistan for 20 years we would have had enough money to provide a free college education or vocational school for every American.”

Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.), also in prepared remarks for the event, noted that she voted “no” on the authorization to use military force in Afghanistan after 9/11 (she was the lone dissenting vote).

“I voted no because I feared the consequences of giving the president, any president, open ended power to use military force anywhere against anyone or any nation,” she said, adding, ”Those consequences have been devastating.”


Marine reinforcements fly towards an area somewhere near Kandahar December 10, 2001. The Marines have pushed closer to Kandahar to continue their mission of interdicting lines of escape. REUTERS/POOL//Earnie Grafton, The San Diego Union-Tribune DPW/WS
Analysis | Reporting | Asia-Pacific
Trump Netanyahu
Top image credit: White House April 7, 2025

Polls: Americans don't support Trump's war on Iran

Military Industrial Complex

While there are serious doubts about the accuracy of President Donald Trump’s claims about the effectiveness of his attacks on Iranian nuclear sites, the U.S./Israeli war on Iran has provided fresh and abundant evidence of widespread opposition to war in the United States.

With a tenuous ceasefire currently holding, several nationwide surveys suggest Trump’s attack, which plunged the country into yet another offensive war in the Middle East, has been broadly unpopular across the country.

keep readingShow less
Could Trump's Congo-Rwanda mineral deals actually save lives?
Top photo credit: Foreign Minister of the Democratic Republic of the Congo Thérèse Kayikwamba Wagner, left, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, center, and Foreign Minister of Rwanda Olivier Nduhungirehe, right, during ceremony to sign a Declaration of Principles between the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Rwanda, at the State Department, in Washington, D.C., on Friday, April 25, 2025. (Graeme Sloan/Sipa USA)

Could Trump's Congo-Rwanda mineral deals actually save lives?

Africa

There may be a light at the end of the tunnel as representatives from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Rwanda are hoping to end the violence between them by signing a peace deal in a joint signing ceremony in Washington today.

This comes after the United States and Qatar have been working for months to mediate an end to the conflict roiling the eastern DRC for years.

keep readingShow less
Trump steve Bannon
Top photo credit: President Donald Trump (White House/Flickr) and Steve Bannon (Gage Skidmore/Flickr)

Don't read the funeral rites for MAGA restraint yet

Washington Politics

On the same night President Donald Trump ordered U.S. airstrikes against Iran, POLITICO reported, “MAGA largely falls in line on Trump’s Iran strikes.”

The report cited “Charlie Kirk, a conservative activist and critic of GOP war hawks,” who posted on X, “Iran gave President Trump no choice.” It noted that former Republican Congressman Matt Gaetz, a longtime Trump supporter, “said on X that the president’s strike didn’t necessarily portend a larger conflict.” Gaetz said. “Trump the Peacemaker!”

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.