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"The U.S. wars in Afghanistan and Iraq will cost taxpayers $4 trillion to $6 trillion, taking into account the medical care of wounded veterans and expensive re

by ghouse 11y ago

"The U.S. wars in Afghanistan and Iraq will cost taxpayers $4 trillion to $6 trillion, taking into account the medical care of wounded veterans and expensive repairs to a force depleted by more than a decade of fighting" - Washington Post, March 28, 2013

chishaku 11y ago
> At the outset of the Iraq war, the Bush administration predicted that it would cost $50 billion to $60 billion to oust Saddam Hussein, restore order and install a new government. > Only one economist, William D. Nordhaus of Yale, seems to have come close. In a paper in December 2002, he offered a worst-case estimate of $1.9 trillion, “if the war drags on, occupation is lengthy, nation-building is costly.” http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/19/washington/19cost.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/19/washington/19cost.html?_r=...
- Pyxl101 11y ago
  Do we have better accounting and estimation methods now, to advise current commanders-in-chief? The next time a president wants to take the USA to war, or enter any armed conflict, I'd like to see that announcement be accompanied by (or followed shortly thereafter by) a GAO or similar accounting report estimating probable outcomes and costs. The same report should include an appendix that summarizes recent similar reports delivered in past armed conflicts, analyzing their accuracy with known actual costs. (E.g., that appendix should report this fact about the Iraq war and the updated estimate for the new war should take into account the sources of inaccuracy that led to the underestimation). In software engineering, at least part of the job is doing something new every time. If it wasn't new it wouldn't need a human - it would just be a machine doing something repeatedly. I imagine that war is to some extent the same way, in that no opposition force is exactly the same; yet a lot of war must be loosely similar in cost, barring major technological changes. (E.g., cost per square mile of territory held by infantry or cost per civilian population or cost per enemy combatant; cost per square mile of enforced no-fly-zone, etc.) Say, where are all of the data scientists? You'd think that you could draw some interesting conclusions analyzing data about the costs of war, assuming it's publicly available. For example, a histogram of dollars spent month by month per province of occupied territory - is such data public? I don't think I've ever seen much in the way of interesting visualizations, outside of the occasional flashy news article.
  - p4wnc6 11y ago
    It's super easy to defeat this kind of constraint. Just claim that if we don't act immediately, the bad guys will kill freedom. There's no time for a GAO! You want to jeopardize the eternal fate of freedom and the triumph of evil because you want a budget proposal!? Put that on CNN and Fox News. Now the old people want war. Smart people are caught wasting their time in an engineered debate about whether there is or isn't time to first plan a budget. While everyone is riled up, Congress side steps the whole thing and we just begin with whatever military operations they wanted.
    - Pyxl101 11y ago
      It takes a while to go to war or enter armed conflict at scale (on smaller scale, certain force units like Marine Expeditionary Units and certain commando teams can move pretty quickly). The President should have the authority the Constitution gives him to do that. I'd just like to see the GAO rushing alongside that process to prepare expected financial outcomes, to be shared with American citizens and press who will be evaluating the pending action.
  - rodgerd 11y ago
    > Do we have better accounting and estimation methods now, to advise current commanders-in-chief? Colin Powell stood up in front of the UN and lied his arse off about "WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION" and the only presidential candidates I've ever seen call this out are the rank, nominally unelectable outsiders like Sanders, Paul, and Trump. What on earth makes you think the voters who don't give a shit about the government lying their way into a war on the topic of chemical weapons would care if there were lies about the money?
  - baddox 11y ago
    > Do we have better accounting and estimation methods now, to advise current commanders-in-chief? You presume that spending money isn't one of the primary goals of some military campaigns.
    - alanwatts 11y ago
Zigurd 11y ago
If you ever wonder why the economy isn't "taking off" remember the neocons and the ibankers. Led by Dubya, they nearly crashed and burned the nation. They robbed our kids of this wealth. And the next generation, too. If another deep global recession arrives soon, and we find ourselves an ex-great, ex-wealthy nation, these mistakes will be at the root of it. The men who did this are not just wrong, they are evil.

by ghouse 11y ago

chishaku 11y ago

> At the outset of the Iraq war, the Bush administration predicted that it would cost $50 billion to $60 billion to oust Saddam Hussein, restore order and install a new government. > Only one economist, William D. Nordhaus of Yale, seems to have come close. In a paper in December 2002, he offered a worst-case estimate of $1.9 trillion, “if the war drags on, occupation is lengthy, nation-building is costly.” http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/19/washington/19cost.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/19/washington/19cost.html?_r=...

Pyxl101 11y ago
Do we have better accounting and estimation methods now, to advise current commanders-in-chief? The next time a president wants to take the USA to war, or enter any armed conflict, I'd like to see that announcement be accompanied by (or followed shortly thereafter by) a GAO or similar accounting report estimating probable outcomes and costs. The same report should include an appendix that summarizes recent similar reports delivered in past armed conflicts, analyzing their accuracy with known actual costs. (E.g., that appendix should report this fact about the Iraq war and the updated estimate for the new war should take into account the sources of inaccuracy that led to the underestimation). In software engineering, at least part of the job is doing something new every time. If it wasn't new it wouldn't need a human - it would just be a machine doing something repeatedly. I imagine that war is to some extent the same way, in that no opposition force is exactly the same; yet a lot of war must be loosely similar in cost, barring major technological changes. (E.g., cost per square mile of territory held by infantry or cost per civilian population or cost per enemy combatant; cost per square mile of enforced no-fly-zone, etc.) Say, where are all of the data scientists? You'd think that you could draw some interesting conclusions analyzing data about the costs of war, assuming it's publicly available. For example, a histogram of dollars spent month by month per province of occupied territory - is such data public? I don't think I've ever seen much in the way of interesting visualizations, outside of the occasional flashy news article.
- p4wnc6 11y ago
  It's super easy to defeat this kind of constraint. Just claim that if we don't act immediately, the bad guys will kill freedom. There's no time for a GAO! You want to jeopardize the eternal fate of freedom and the triumph of evil because you want a budget proposal!? Put that on CNN and Fox News. Now the old people want war. Smart people are caught wasting their time in an engineered debate about whether there is or isn't time to first plan a budget. While everyone is riled up, Congress side steps the whole thing and we just begin with whatever military operations they wanted.
  - Pyxl101 11y ago
    It takes a while to go to war or enter armed conflict at scale (on smaller scale, certain force units like Marine Expeditionary Units and certain commando teams can move pretty quickly). The President should have the authority the Constitution gives him to do that. I'd just like to see the GAO rushing alongside that process to prepare expected financial outcomes, to be shared with American citizens and press who will be evaluating the pending action.
- rodgerd 11y ago
  > Do we have better accounting and estimation methods now, to advise current commanders-in-chief? Colin Powell stood up in front of the UN and lied his arse off about "WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION" and the only presidential candidates I've ever seen call this out are the rank, nominally unelectable outsiders like Sanders, Paul, and Trump. What on earth makes you think the voters who don't give a shit about the government lying their way into a war on the topic of chemical weapons would care if there were lies about the money?
- baddox 11y ago
  > Do we have better accounting and estimation methods now, to advise current commanders-in-chief? You presume that spending money isn't one of the primary goals of some military campaigns.
  - alanwatts 11y ago

Zigurd 11y ago

If you ever wonder why the economy isn't "taking off" remember the neocons and the ibankers. Led by Dubya, they nearly crashed and burned the nation. They robbed our kids of this wealth. And the next generation, too. If another deep global recession arrives soon, and we find ourselves an ex-great, ex-wealthy nation, these mistakes will be at the root of it. The men who did this are not just wrong, they are evil.