Examining data before the U.S. war in Afghanistan and after the U.S. withdrawal, this infographic displays indicators of poverty, food insecurity, child malnutrition, women's rights, U.S. spending, and more.
Montague Burton Professor, University of Oxford
Co-Founder, 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...
Forced returns to Afghanistan continue, despite UNHCR’s non-return advisory. In 2023, over a million Afghans were forcibly returned from Pakistan and Iran. Various governments justify a trend of increasing returns to Afghanistan by arguing that active war has subsided since August 2021, when the...
Over the 20-year period of the U.S. intervention in Afghanistan, the U.S. Department of Defense paid various companies about $108 billion in contracts for work performed in the country, according to our latest research. This is in addition to the trillions of dollars spent on Department of...
Mimi Healy, Jennifer Greenburg "Trump's Policies Will Worsen the Military's Sexual Assault Crisis" Common Dreams, April 29, 2025...
August 2022
Costs of War Project (2022)
SUMMARY AND PAPER >
The United States’ Special Immigrant Visa (SIV) Program was designed to help Afghans and Iraqis in danger as a result of their service to the U.S. government, yet fails to properly support those who need it most. This report tells the stories of Afghans who served as translators or other...
This paper examines labor abuses during the war in Afghanistan, focusing on how the U.S. is denying legally-required compensation to foreign workers in war zones. The U.S. government leaned heavily on contractors to do its essential work during the war in Afghanistan. In 2020, approximately 65%...
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...
August 2021
U.S. Costs to Date for the War in Afghanistan FY2001-2022 (in Current $Billions, USD)Total = $2.313 Trillion
The United States military in 2017 chose to relax its rules of engagement for airstrikes in Afghanistan, which resulted in a massive increase in civilian casualties. From the last year of the Obama administration to the last full year of recorded data during the Trump administration, the number...
As veterans continue to bear huge physical and mental costs from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the costs of caring for post-9/11 war vets will reach between $2.2 and $2.5 trillion by 2050 – most of which has not yet been paid. The U.S. may shortchange its promises to these veterans if the...
August 11, 2019 Military Times
The democratic candidates are problematically equating America’s “Endless War” with Afghanistan and only Afghanistan, writes co-director Stephanie Savell in an op ed in The Military Times.
October 7, 2013 Truthout
H. Patricia Hynes: “Altogether the war in Afghanistan has cost American citizens $1.834 trillion, or 30 times President Bush's touted cost. The authors concede this is a conservative figure that excludes the social costs to families caring for veterans and record-breaking rates of veteran suicide, unemployment, homelessness, domestic violence and family breakup with its punishing setbacks for children. Nor does it include the collateral effects of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars: higher oil prices, intensified recession and the loss of domestic jobs.”
April 7, 2023 Reuters
Reuters cited Costs of War on Afghanistan war deaths in an article about the Biden administration’s review of the pull out from Afghanistan (reposted in France 24.)
Thomas J. Watson, Jr. Family Professor Emerita of Anthropology and International Studies, Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs, Brown University
Co-Founder and Strategic Advisor, Costs of War
Catherine Lutz is the co-founder and strategic advisor of the Costs of War project. Lutz is the author of numerous books on the U.S. military and its bases and personnel, including "War and Health: The Medical Consequences of the Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan" (ed. with A. Mazzarino, 2019), ...
July 7, 2021 In These Times
In These Times references Costs of War data on the number of people displaced in Afghanistan because of the post-9/11 wars.
December 14, 2019 Forbes
In Forbes, contributor William Hartung cites Costs of War Project findings that ending the U.S. military presence in Afghanistan could save between $210 billion and $360 billion over the next four years.