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Neta Crawford (featured) "How the US became the biggest military emitter and stopped everyone finding out" The Guardian, May 30, 2025...
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Resources for Teaching the Post-9/11 Wars
Costs of War Project research supports an interdisciplinary approach to teaching on the post-9/11 wars and these resources can be utilized for college, high school, and middle school educators....
Costs of the U.S.-Led War in Iraq Since 2003
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...
Director: Neta C. Crawford
Montague Burton Professor, University of Oxford
Co-Founder and Strategic Advisor, Costs of War
Neta C. Crawford is the author of "The Pentagon, Climate Change, and War: Charting the Rise and Fall of U.S. Military Emissions" (MIT Press, 2022). Crawford is also the author of three other books, "Accountability for Killing: Moral Responsibility for Collateral Damage in America's Post-9/11 Wars...
The Guards, Cooks, and Cleaners of the Afghan War: Migrant Contractors and the Cost of War
August 2017
Noah Coburn (2017)
Paper (pdf)
PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] – On Monday, President Trump’s speech on the war in Afghanistan seemed to reveal a U.S. military strategy that will continue to look like more of the same. Even with an increase in military personnel, the U.S. can expect to see a continued reliance on the tens of thousands of security contractors who many war analysts now call America’s invisible soldiers or army. A report released this week by the Costs of War Project at Brown University’s Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs describes, in detail, the exploitation of immigrant contractors working for the U.S. in the war zones of Afghanistan and Iraq, highlighting abysmal labor conditions and other human rights violations.
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Auditing the War on Terror: The Watson Institute's Costs of War Project
May 17, 2013 American Anthropologist
"The Costs of War project advocates increasing governmental transparency of those aspects of war that can be counted…as a basic means of providing the context for a democratic debate about war."
The War Piece to End All War Pieces
August 16, 2018 TomDispatch
Costs of War study cited on TomDispatch, "Thanks to [Osama bin Laden's] “precision” weaponry -- those 19 suicidal hijackers in commercial jets -- the nearly 17 years of wars he's sparked across much of the Muslim world cost a man from one of Saudi Arabia’s wealthiest families a mere $400,000 to $500,000. They’ve cost American taxpayers, minimally, $5.6 trillion dollars with no end in sight."
Let's have a budget war on war budgets
August 30, 2011 Star Tribune
“The more disturbing finding, however, is that in the coming years the wars threaten to cost the nation another $2 trillion – in interest payments on war debt as well as continuing medical expenses for 150,000 wounded veterans.”
Climate Change & War: How U.S. Military Emissions Factor into Costs of War & Shape Military Policy
March 17, 2023 Democracy Now!
Neta Crawford discussed her book, The Pentagon, Climate Change and War, in a separate segment on Democracy Now! web exclusive.
War Against Working People: War Against the World
February 8, 2024 Counterpunch
Costs of War was cited in Counterpunch on U.S. military spending.
Study Shows War On Terror Displaced 37 Million People, More Than Any War, Except WWII Since 1900
September 8, 2020 The Daily Caller
The Daily Caller features Costs of War's study, authored by David Vine and colleagues from American University, calculating that 37 million people have been displaced by the U.S. post-9/11 wars.
It’s time to shift from the ‘war on terror’ to a war on climate change
November 7, 2021 The Guardian
The Guardian cites research by Erik Dahl on the Department of Homeland Security and how it missed the domestic rise in terrorism and white supremacy.
Human Cost of Post-9/11 Wars: Direct War Deaths in Major War Zones
November 2019
Neta C. Crawford and Catherine Lutz (2019)
Home from Afghanistan war, disabled veterans fight their forever war
September 16, 2021 USA Today
USA Today cites research by Thomas Suitt III on veteran and service memeber suicides since 9/11.
Staff: Heidi Peltier
Senior Researcher, Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs, Brown University
Director of Programs, Costs of War
Heidi Peltier has been a contributing author to the Costs of War project since its inception in 2010 and joined the staff in 2019....
Contributor: Zoë H. Wool
Assistant Professor in the Department of Anthropology, University of Toronto, Mississauga
Zoë Wool has conducted ethnographic fieldwork with grievously injured US soldiers and their families living at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, as well as at other military sites in the US and abroad. She is the author of numerous peer-reviewed articles about the ongoing effects of war in...
US Senate Debates Yemen War Powers Resolution
March 21, 2018 C-SPAN
During a Senate debate on the Yemen War Powers Resolution on March 20, 2018, lawmakers discussed the extent of U.S. force abroad and Congress's role in making decisions about where the U.S. goes to war. Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) cited new Brown University Costs of War project data showing that the U.S. is taking military action against terrorism in 76 countries. "How often," he asked, "has Congress debated whether those military actions were authorized?" Costs of War Project cited at 4:07: US Senate Debates Yemen War Powers Resolution - C-SPAN
United States Budgetary Costs and Human Costs of 20 Years of War in Iraq and Syria, 2003-2023
March 2023
Blood and Treasure: United States Budgetary Costs and Human Costs of 20 Years of War in Iraq and Syria, 2003-2023 Neta C. Crawford March 15, 2023