While the rest of us spent the weekends reckoning the human cost of war over our country’s history, insiders in President Obama’s administration are toting up the cost of fighting today’s war in Afghanistan and finding it “unsustainable“:
Of all the statistics that President Obama’s national security team will consider when it debates the size of forthcoming troop reductions in Afghanistan, the most influential number probably will not be how many insurgents have been killed or the amount of territory wrested from the Taliban, according to aides to those who will participate.
It will be the cost of the war.
The U.S. military is on track to spend $113 billion on its operations in Afghanistan this fiscal year, and it is seeking $107 billion for the next. To many of the president’s civilian advisers, that price is too high, given a wide federal budget gap that will require further cuts to domestic programs and increased deficit spending. Growing doubts about the need for such a broad nation-building mission there in the wake of Osama bin Laden’s death have only sharpened that view.
“Where we’re at right now is simply not sustainable,” said one senior administration official, who, like several others interviewed for this article, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal policy deliberations.
Civilian advisers, who do not want to be seen as unwilling to pay for the war, are expected to frame their cost concerns in questions about the breadth of U.S. operations — arguing that the troop surge Obama authorized in 2009 has achieved many of its goals — instead of directly tackling money matters. When the president’s war cabinet evaluates troop-withdrawal options in the next few weeks presented by Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top coalition commander, “it’s not like each of them will have price tags next to them,” the official said. But “it’s certainly going to shape how most of the civilians look at this.”
There are rarely field commanders who think they have sufficient resources to do their jobs, but the most successful of them find a way to fight and win with the resources they can muster. Still, when you shape your military strategy with an eye first towards cost rather than desired effects and their associated costs, you pave the way for disaster. The consequences of which never attach to those making the budgetary decisions, but rather to the poor doggies in the field forced to make do. See also, the British Army in Helmand.
The cost of fighting in Afghanistan is known to Pentagon budgeteers by the penny. I do not know if they have reckoned the human and strategic costs of losing. And while it’s true that spending on “overseas contingency operations” contributes indirectly to the budgetary shortfall – these are all fully funded operations, after all – shutting them down only kicks the can of the looming entitlement spending crisis down the road.
War or no war, the boomers are getting older and their bills are coming due.
There is a cost of doing something, and there is a cost to doing nothing as well. And the latter is usually FAR greater than the former. Just ask any widow whose husband didn’t buy life insurance, the retiree who reaches age 65 having not saved a dime, or a nation which has just lost a war. Unfortunately. unlike ala “The Mouse That Roared,” we can’t bank on any benevolent victor to shower us with money.
This is all about the election. Anything they can come up with to claim how much money they have ‘cut’ from the budget so they don’t actually have to do anything concrete. They depend on the electorate being stupid – and do everything in their power to confuse the details of what it is they are doing. They are liars and the most cynical threat to our nation.
I’d ask Neville Chamberlain about the cost of doing nothing but he won’t answer the phone.
Very good, Byron! We could also try to calculate the contributions by the “Boomer Generation” to the GNP since 1950. That ought to be quite a fancy number!
Alas, we have a generation that has had so much handed to them that a very large fraction of them are spoiled rotten. Spoiled rotten is cute in a Dachsund, and I’ve had a couple, but it isn’t even close to cute in an adult.
Still, we can’t let all those spoiled boomers die in the streets can we? Not to mention all those illegals.
Fine. Look at the cost and make decisions…but look at the cost(s) for all the other things that our overbearing federal government is into and then make decisions about all of it, including prioritizing as to which expenditures might be cut with the least long term harm to our country’s interests.
Won’t happen. After all, most important of all to politicians is staying in power and garnering votes from those who they give money to, the country be damned.
I suspect that they got to looking at the cost of all the social programs and decided that if they could trim a few billion here and a few billion there, they could pay for all the social goodies. Nasty ol’ war is just gettin’ in the way of their carefully laid plans for
the hearts and minds of their constituents.Above should read wqinning the hearts and minds of their constituents.
One of these days, I’ll learn some basic html.
I wonder if anyone is counting the cost of doing the financial analysis? You would be surprised about just how much gets spent tracking funds…and everything else.
Usually with total disregard for the concept of Significant Figures.
“Usually with total disregard for the concept of Significant Figures.”
Except. that is, in the case of any “out-side consultants” involved on the receiving-end of the largess resulting from the billable time..
This should come as no surprise to anyone. Just look at the figures…..that’s $220B that the jug-eared facilitator CAN’T USE TO BUY VOTES FOR HIS NEXT ELECTION. Meanwhile, his new JCS nominees are just rubbing their hands waiting to gut our military from within in order to assure their own promotions. I wish I wasn’t so damned cynical…or so worried about the future of our country.
Wow, whodathought you could actually calculate ROI on war!!???
You’re in Good Hands with Obamastate.
If only we were making war pay. Alas.
He wanted to end the war back in 2009 but when he got inside and found out the “real deal”, the boys in the 5 sided wind tunnel were able to enlighten him to the reality….we need to stay in AFGHN to keep an eye on IRAN, INDIA, PAKISTAN, CHINA and RUSSIA…we have the perfect staging platform in AFGHN so we are likely not going anywhere.
The REAL economic issue for the 2012 election cycle will be the price of Gas, Food, Housing & Healthcare….those are the items we as American deal with each payday and the dwindling ROI from what wages we have will tell the tale of how ” Barry-from-Chicago” will fare in the election….
Say “hello” to Rahm for us when you get back to CHI-TOWN as POTUS’ days are numbered in DC.
Fickin’ udjets.
I believe the last DC bean-counter which utilized this kind of mindless, accountant-driven, bottom-line thinking was a fellow called Robert S. McNamara. I understand it worked out wonderfully for him.