The US-led military operation against the Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS) militants has likely so far cost the United States government between $780 and $930 million dollars. Money it simply doesn’t have right now and has to borrow to pay for it. The US is currently over 17 trillion dollars in debt.
On June 30, 2014, the debt held by the public was approximately $12.6 trillion or about 74% of Q1 2014 GDPIntragovernmental holdings stood at $5.1 trillion (30%), giving a combined total public debt of $17.6 trillion or about 103% of Q1 2014 GDP.
As of June 2014, $6.0 trillion or approximately 48% of the debt held by the public was owned by foreign investors, the largest of which were the People’s Republic of China and Japan at about $1.3 trillion and $1.2 trillion respectively
The estimate is part of a report attempting to gauge the cost of the war against ISIS might cost in the future.
It was published on Monday by the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (CSBA), that’s influential with the US Department of Defense.
The report noted:
“The cost of U.S. military operations against ISIL through September 24 is likely between $780 and $930 million.
The cost of future operations depends primarily on how long operations continue, the intensity of air operations, and whether additional ground forces are deployed beyond what is already planned. Assuming a moderate level of air operations and 2,000 deployed ground forces, the costs would likely run between $200 and $320 million per month.
If air operations are conducted at a higher pace and 5,000 ground forces are deployed, the costs would be between $350 and $570 million per month. If operations expand significantly to include the deployment of 25,000 U.S. troops on the ground, as some have recommended, costs would likely reach $1.1 to $1.8 billion per month.
On an annualized basis, the lower-intensity air operations could cost $2.4 to $3.8 billion per year, the higher-intensity air operations could cost $4.2 to $6.8 billion per year, and deployment of a larger ground contingent could drive annual costs as high as $13 to $22 billion.”
Source: http://www.csbaonline.org/…/estimating-the-cost-of-operati…/
Note: The cost of war is always much higher than the dollar amount. It is measured in the number of human lives lost. This far the conflict in Syria has killed anywhere from 160,000- 191,000 human lives. We simply don’t have an accurate figure only guestimates at this point.
We do know that over 700,000 human beings have fled Syria to neighboring countries in an attempt to escape the violence of the war. Creating the largest human refugee crisis in modern times.