While the $2.3 trillion in Congressional appropriations for "Overseas Contingency Operations" might seem staggering, it’s just the surface of the true financial burden of the post-9/11 wars. Beyond the direct combat costs, additional expenditures like the Pentagon's base budget — ballooned by $900 billion through FY2022 — and over $1 trillion in accumulated interest from borrowed war funds contribute to a much larger financial iceberg.
The U.S. spent over $2.3 trillion in Afghanistan alone from FY2001 to FY2022, while wars in Iraq and Syria drained an additional $2.9 trillion during the same period. And that’s not the end: through 2050, an estimated $2.5 trillion will be needed to cover veterans' medical and disability payments, alongside Homeland Security spending, which has already exceeded $1.1 trillion to protect against terrorist threats.
In total, the U.S. government has spent and committed over $8 trillion to fund these wars. Even if all military spending were to halt today, the legacy of debt and future costs would continue to weigh heavily on the federal budget for decades to come.
