STOCK MARKET WATCH -- Monday, 15 December 2014

[Demeter]

31. $1tn cost of longest US war hastens retreat from military intervention

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/14be0e0c-8255-11e4-ace7-00144feabdc0.html?ftcamp=published_links%2Frss%2Fhome_us%2Ffeed%2F%2Fproduct#slide0

The Afghanistan war, the longest overseas conflict in American history, has cost the US taxpayer nearly $1tn and will require spending several hundred billion dollars more after it officially ends this month, according to Financial Times calculations and independent researchers.

Around 80 per cent of that spending on the Afghanistan conflict has taken place during the presidency of Barack Obama, who sharply increased the US military presence in the country after taking office in 2009...

...With the Iraq war having already cost the US $1.7tn, according to one study, the bill from the Afghanistan conflict is an important factor in the broader reluctance among the American public and the Obama administration to intervene militarily in other parts of the world — including sending troops back to Iraq...

...Adjusted for inflation, Mr Sopko (John Sopko, the government’s special inspector-general for Afghanistan) said the amount the US had spent on reconstruction in Afghanistan was more than the cost of the Marshall Plan to rebuild western Europe....“We simply cannot lose this amount of money again,” he said. “The American people will not put up with it.” ...The future bill from the Afghan war is likely to run into hundreds of billions of dollars more. The Pentagon has indicated it wants funding of $120bn for 2016-19 for operations in Afghanistan, although the eventual cost will depend on the future mission that the White House decides on...As well as further interest payments, the health bills will start to rise dramatically, especially once veterans from the war reach their 60s and begin to use more medical services...forecasts future medical and disability costs for veterans from both Iraq and Afghanistan will reach $836bn over the coming decades. The two wars have also added to the Pentagon’s fast-growing pension bill: the military pension system has an unfunded liability of $1.27tn, which is expected to rise to $2.72tn by 2034.