At least 940,000 people have been killed by direct war violence in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen, and Pakistan. The number of people who have been wounded or have fallen ill as a result of the conflicts is far higher, as is the number of civilians who have died indirectly as a result of the d...
Since the 2000s, national governments and terrorist groups – from Israel, Syria’s Assad regime and the United States to the Islamic State – have found ways to curtail conflict coverage through myriad means, from repressive policies to armed attack. All have killed journalists and helped to foster...
Teaching Costs of War: A Q&A With Professor David Vine
Over 7,000 U.S. service members died in post-9/11 war zones including Afghanistan and Iraq. Approximately 177,000 allies in the national military and police from Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, and Syria died. Western allies such as the U.K., Germany, and Canada also have borne significant human...
March 19-20, 2023 marks 20 years since United States forces invaded Iraq to oust dictator Saddam Hussein, under the false claim that his regime was manufacturing weapons of mass destruction. The ensuing war, in which U.S. ground presence peaked in 2007 with over 170,000 soldiers, caused massive...
September 9, 2016 News from Brown
Total U.S. spending on national security related to the post-9/11 war on terror has reached $3.6 trillion, and interest on funds borrowed to pay those bills could climb to $7.9 trillion by 2053.
Costs of War Project research supports an interdisciplinary approach to teaching on the post-9/11 wars. This community is open to instructors, students, and researchers from all fields and the resources can be utilized for college, high school, and middle school educators. Do you have a resource...
March 16, 2023 Democracy Now!
Costs of War research on the human and budgetary costs of war in Iraq and Syria was cited in Democracy Now!.
April 12, 2024 History as it Happens
Journalist Martin di Caro’s newsletter History As It Happens cites Costs of War on the budgetary costs of war in Iraq and Syria.
Co-founder of Security Policy Reform Institute (SPRI)
Stephen Semler is co-founder of Security Policy Reform Institute (SPRI), a think tank that works to align U.S. foreign policy with working-class interests. He also writes Polygraph, a data journalism newsletter. He has previously worked in the international humanitarian response to Syria, U.S....
The U.S. budgetary costs of the war in Afghanistan from FY2001-FY2022 totaled over 2.3 trillion dollars. The estimated U.S. budgetary costs of the wars in Iraq and Syria from FY2003-FY2023 totaled 2.9 trillion dollars....
What are the consequences of Trump’s proposal?...
September 27, 2017 Defense One
This article describes a Pentagon study that says that the average American taxpayer has spent $7,500 on combat operations in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria, but qualifies this number by saying it would be far higher if the study had used Costs of War Project estimates of dollars spent on these wars, which are much more comprehensive than the figures used by the Pentagon.
April 11, 2018 Quartz
This article features Costs of War project data showing how much money the US has allocated for interventions in Syria.
August 30, 2018 Defense One
The Pentagon released a report that said that the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria have cost over $1.5 trillion, but estimates from Brown University's Costs of War project peg the costs at $5.6 trillion.
August 2021
U.S. Costs to Date for the War in Afghanistan FY2001-2022 (in Current $Billions, USD)Total = $2.313 Trillion
March 16, 2023 Reuters
Costs of War's research on the budgetary costs of war in Iraq and Syria was cited in Reuters.
War’s destruction of economies, public services, infrastructure, and the environment leads to deaths that occur long after bombs drop and grow in scale over time. This report reviews the latest research to examine the causal pathways that have led to an estimated 3.6-3.8 million indirect deaths...
U.S. spending on Israel’s military operations and related U.S operations in the region total at least $22.76 billion and counting. This estimate is conservative; while it includes approved security assistance funding since October 7, 2023, supplemental funding for regional operations, and an...