The U.S. budgetary costs of the post-9/11 wars

Abstract

The United States, over the last two decades, has already spent and the Biden administration has requested about $5.8 trillion in reaction to the 9/11 attacks.2 This includes the estimated direct and indirect costs of spending in the United States post-9/11 war zones, homeland security efforts for counterterrorism, and interest payments on war borrowing. Costs for medical care and disability payments for veterans is the largest longterm expense of the post-9/11 wars. As research by Linda Bilmes shows, future medical care and disability payments for veterans, over the next decades, will likely exceed $2.2 trillion in federal spending. Including estimate future costs for veteran’s care, the total budgetary costs and future obligations of the post-9/11 wars is thus about $8 trillion in current dollars. – AI-generated abstract.