Research
by the Costs of War project, a Corporation grantee, reveals the ongoing
costs of the U.S. post-9/11 wars, from human lives and the U.S. global
military footprint to internal and external displacement
By
Carnegie Corporation of New York
September 13, 2023
Assessing the Cascading Effects of War A grantee of Carnegie Corporation of New York, the Costs of War
project uses research and a public website to facilitate debate about
the costs of the post-9/11 wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and related
violence in Pakistan, Somalia, Syria, and elsewhere. There are many
hidden or unacknowledged costs of the United States’ decision to respond
to the 9/11 attacks with military force. The project aims to foster
democratic discussion of these wars by providing the fullest possible
account of their human, economic, environmental, and political costs,
and to foster better informed public policies. Created in 2010 and
housed at Brown University’s Watson Institute for International and
Public Affairs, the Costs of War project builds on the work of over 60
scholars, human rights and legal experts, and physicians from around the
world.
“There are reverberating
costs, the human cost of war, that people in the U.S., for the most
part, don’t really know or think enough about, ” said Stephanie Savell,
codirector of the Costs of War project.
“We hear talk about the endless
war being over now that U.S. troops have left Afghanistan, but one
significant way that these wars are continuing is that the people in the
war zones are continuing to suffer the consequences. The U.S. has been
involved in these really violent wars. There’s been an intensification
as a result of U.S. involvement. And at this point, the issue is really:
How do we come to terms with a sense of responsibility?”
The Costs of War Project: Goals To account for the wars’ costs in human lives and the consequences for public health and well-being, both in the U.S. and in the war zonesTo assess the wars’ budgetary costs, including the financial legacy, as well as the opportunity costs of the U.S. military budgetTo describe the scope of the U.S. global military footprint and its political and social impact in the U.S. and around the worldTo examine the environmental and ecological impact of the U.S. global military presence, including military carbon emissionsTo evaluate alternatives that provide for meaningful, just, and inclusive human safety and securityHere
follow six sections — covering war-related deaths (direct and
indirect); human displacement (external and internal refugees); the
geographic reach of U.S. counterterrorism activities; Afghanistan before
and after the U.S. withdrawal; and the budgetary costs of the U.S.
post-9/11 wars — that give a data-rich snapshot of the comprehensive
nature of the work undertaken by the Costs of War team. As Neta C.
Crawford, Costs of War cofounder and codirector and Montague Burton
Professor of International Relations at the University of Oxford, puts
it, “It’s hard to convey the cost in lives because of these wars. It’s
very tough to talk about it. But we have to.”
Direct Deaths in Post-9/11 Wars
The
violence stemming from conflicts in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Syria,
Yemen, and other areas has directly resulted in the deaths of
approximately 905,000 to 940,000 people. Several times as many more have
been killed as reverberating effects of the wars, losing their lives
due to water loss, sewage and other infrastructural issues, and
war-related disease.
As with most
wars, we may never know the full extent of the loss of life and
injuries. The direct effects include the hundreds of thousands of people
who have been killed and injured due to the fighting — killed by bombs,
bullets, and fire. The number of people killed directly in the violence
of the post-9/11 wars in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, and
other war zones is estimated here.
NOTE:
The time periods covered in this table are: Oct. 2001–Aug. 2021
(Afghanistan and Pakistan); Mar. 2003–Mar. 2023 (Iraq); Sept. 2014–Mar.
2023 (Syria/ISIS); Oct. 2002–Aug. 2021 (Yemen); and Oct. 2001–Dec. 2014
(other post-9/11 war zones). The chart also draws on another, earlier
paper (September 1, 2021) by Neta C. Crawford and Catherine Lutz for the
rest of the war zones: Human Cost of Post-9/11 Wars: Direct War Deaths
in Major War Zones.
Indirect Deaths: The Reverberating Impact of the Post-9/11 Wars
The
number of people killed indirectly in post-9/11 war zones, including in
Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Syria, and Yemen, is estimated at 3.6–3.8
million, though the precise figure remains unknown.
The report How Death Outlives War
The report examines
the devastating toll of war on human health, whoever the combatant,
whatever the compounding factor, in the most violent conflicts in which
the U.S. government has been engaged in the name of counterterrorism
since September 11, 2001. Rather than teasing apart who or what is to
blame, or separating out the negative enduring effects of prior wars and
sanctions, this report shows that the post-9/11 wars are implicated in
many kinds of deaths.
In laying out how the post-9/11 wars have
led to illness and indirect deaths, the report’s goal is to build
greater awareness of the fuller human costs of these wars and support
calls for the United States and other governments to alleviate the
ongoing losses and suffering of millions in current and former war
zones. The report highlights many long-term and underacknowledged
consequences of war for human health, emphasizing that some groups,
particularly women and children, suffer the brunt of these ongoing
impacts.
Indirect
war deaths are caused by economic collapse, food insecurity, the
destruction of public services and health infrastructure, environmental
contamination, reverberating trauma and violence, and other impacts. Furthermore, internal displacements increase people’s vulnerability to
the negative health effects of war — including malnutrition, maternal
and newborn complications, injury, and disease — which
disproportionately impact women and children.
Millions Displaced by the Post-9/11 Wars
Over
38 million people have been displaced — becoming refugees seeking
safety in another country, or becoming internally displaced within their
own country — as a result of the wars the U.S. military has fought
since 2001.
That is more than those displaced by any war or disaster
since the start of the 20th century, except for World War II.
Although
the United States has accepted hundreds of thousands of refugees, most
have been hosted by countries in the greater Middle East. Any
number is limited in what it can convey about displacement’s damage.
The people behind the numbers can be difficult to see, and numbers
cannot communicate how it might feel to lose one’s home, belongings,
community, and much more.
Displacement has caused incalculable harm to
individuals, families, towns, cities, regions, and entire countries
physically, socially, emotionally, and economically.
In
this map, arrows point to the top three countries where the most
refugees and asylum seekers from each war-affected country have fled as
of 2019.
Arrows for Syria include all displaced Syrians, 2011–2019.
Dates indicate the start of U.S. military involvement.
Displaced
persons data updated through 2020; Syrian and Afghan internally
displaced persons data updated through 2021. Syrian data only includes
people displaced during years of direct U.S. military involvement in the
war and in five provinces where U.S. forces have fought. Key source,
updated August 2021: David Vine, Cala Coffman, Katalina Khoury, Madison
Lovasz, Helen Bush, Rachel Leduc, and Jennifer Walkup, Creating Refugees: Displacement Caused by the United States’ Post-9/11 Wars ,
Costs of War Project, Brown University, Sept. 21, 2020.
(Credit: Map
and graphics by Kelly Martin, www.kmartindesign.com & Investigative
Reporting Workshop)
U.S. Counterterrorism Operations, 2018–2020
The
U.S. government has taken part in what it has labeled
“counterterrorism” activities in at least 85 countries, in an outgrowth
of President George W. Bush’s “Global War on Terror” and the U.S.
invasion of Afghanistan in 2001
The
map below illustrates countries in which the U.S. government conducted
operations it explicitly described as counterterrorism, in an outgrowth
of President George W. Bush’s “Global War on Terror.”
These operations
included air and drone strikes; on-the-ground combat; so-called “Section
127e” programs in which U.S. special operations forces support “foreign
forces, irregular forces, groups, or individuals” engaged in
counterterrorism activities; military exercises in preparation for or as
part of counterterrorism missions; and operations to train and assist
foreign forces. The map does not comprehensively cover the full scope of
U.S. post-9/11 warfare, as it does not document, for instance, U.S.
military bases used for counterterror operations, arms sales to foreign
governments, or all deployments of U.S. special operations forces.
Despite
the Pentagon’s assertion that the U.S. is shifting its strategic
emphasis away from counterterrorism and toward great power competition
with Russia and China, examining U.S. military activity on a
country-by-country basis shows that there is yet to be a corresponding
drawdown of the counterterror apparatus. If anything, this map
demonstrates that counterterrorism operations have become more
widespread in recent years.
Afghanistan Before and After 20 Years of War (2001—2021)
Examining
data before the U.S. war in Afghanistan and after the U.S. withdrawal,
the infographic below displays indicators of poverty, food insecurity,
child malnutrition, women’s rights, U.S. spending , and more.
After
the war, Afghanistan has seen increases in the percentage of Afghans
facing food insecurity, children under five experiencing acute
malnutrition, and Afghans living in poverty. Women's rights continue to
be heavily restricted.
U.S. development aid to Afghanistan has amounted
to $36.07 billion since 2001, while U.S. spending on the top five
military contractors has amounted to $2.1 trillion. In 2022, there were
1.5 million Afghans living with physical disabilities and 2 million
Afghan widows.
Estimate of U.S. Post-9/11 War Spending FY2001–FY2022
The
vast economic impact of the post-9/11 wars in Afghanistan, Pakistan,
Iraq, Syria, and elsewhere is poorly understood by the U.S. public and
policymakers.
The economic impact of the U.S. post-9/11 wars
extends beyond the Pentagon’s “Overseas Contingency Operations” (war)
budget.
The charts below and the paper The U.S. Budgetary Costs of the Post-9/11 Wars
The
comprehensive budgetary costs of the U.S. post-9/11 wars
include overseas contingency operations (OCO) of the Department of
Defense ($2,101 billion), homeland security prevention and response to
terrorism ($1,117 billion), interest on OCO borrowing ($1,087 billion), increases to Department of Defense base budget ($884 billion), veterans’
medical care and disability ($465 billion), and State Department OCO
appropriations ($189 billion).
Including
estimated future costs for veterans’ care, the total budgetary costs
and future obligations of the post-9/11 wars is about $8 trillion in
current dollars.
Concept by Kenneth Benson and Daniel Um. Art Direction by Daniel Um. Text by the Costs of War project. Kenneth Benson is Carnegie Corporation of New York’s editorial manager. Daniel Um is Carnegie Corporation of New York’s principal design director.
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