I continue to read commentary bemoaning the high, even "unsustainable," monetary expense of the war in Iraq, and the war on terror Islamofascism generally.
This study, an interesting cost-benefit analysis of the (then future) war in Iraq, dated March 20, 2003, conservatively estimates the cost of the Iraq war at $125 billion.
The authors conclude:
In sum, the costs of containment dramatically outweigh the costs of war according to our analysis. This conclusion holds in economic terms, from both U.S. and Iraqi perspectives, and in terms of human lives. To reach a different conclusion requires a very different assessment about the relative costs of war and containment.
This study points out that, in 2002 dollars, World War II cost $20,388 per American, and the Vietnam war cost $2,204 per capita.
Assuming that the former study is roughly correct, for the cost of fighting WWII, we could pay for the equivalent of freeing 46 Iraqs. For the cost of fighting in Vietnam, we could pay for the equivalent of freeing 5 Iraqs.
Meanwhile, according to this article, we're currently spending about $17 per month per person in Iraq and Afghanistan. That seems like an extremely reasonable expense to me given the likely benefits.
Update: Darren Kaplan discusses the cost issue.
Posted by oscarjr at September 2, 2003 11:27 PM | TrackBackThe problem is how little the authors value the potential win for the governmental change in Iraq which could have far-reaching, positive benefits throughout the region.
It's hard to make a sort of economic decision on something like this because the value assigned to the win or the loss is entirely different depending on political leanings and cannot accurately be measured in dollars no matter the viewpoint.
Further, only a small amount of the cost and benefit is calculable--there are just too many possibilities that cannot be forseen. Many of those possibilities seem, equally, to make sense while being mutually exclusive.
Only in retrospect does the cost become truly evident--and does that cost truly consider the economic gains made by opening new markets? Or the cost of new competition?
Sure, we can talk about direct costs, but that is really only part of the equation.
Posted by: zombyboy at 07:24 PMThanks for the thoughtful comment, Zombyboy.
I don't know if you had a chance to read the first study linked above, but it's pretty interesting. It's true that they don't attempt to account for collateral, regional benefits, but, it seems to me, doing so would only have strengthened the authors' conclusions.
It's also true that they only compare costs and benefits in human and economic terms, but, again, in at least these terms, our endeavor was justified as worthwhile.
And, again, you're correct that only in retrospect can the true costs and benefits be measured. However, the war could only have been justified by an ex ante analysis such as this.
What I was really wondering when I wrote that post was (a) whether those bemoaning the "excessive" cost of the war care a whit about the potential benefits, and (b) how $4 billion per month could be considered "unsustainable" in a $10.4 trillion economy. I probably should have simply asked those questions.
Anyway, thanks again for your thoughts.
Posted by: Oscar Jr. at 08:02 PMWith the economy as bad as it is in the USA, we needed something like this war. Do not get me wrong, I do not like our president. He is doing what he thinks is right. In a sense he is right by trying to get our economy out of the gutter (which he put us in anyway), but on the other side, would you want a person getting involved in your business? No. We have torn apart Iraq, and found nothing, Now it is our job to rebuild Iraq. Not in our image, we have to rebuild like the Iraqi population wants us to.
Posted by: Spyderhawk23 at 09:51 AMBTW, you can only save 44.03808 Iraqs with the cost of the WW2 estimate of $20,388.
Posted by: Spyderhawk23 at 09:53 AM