AI Overview
The War on Terror has cost $8+ trillion and killed 900,000+ people across 85 countries, yet global terrorism deaths have increased 800% since 2001.
The War on Terror: $8T Later
Two decades. 940,000 dead. 37 million displaced. 80+ countries. Zero objectives fully met.
On September 11, 2001, 2,977 Americans died in the worst terrorist attack on US soil. In response, the United States launched what would become the most expensive, most far-reaching, and most catastrophic military campaign in modern history — a “war” with no defined enemy, no geographic boundary, no exit criteria, and no end. Twenty-five years and $8T later, there are more terrorist organizations in the world than when it started.
$8T
Total Cost
Brown University Costs of War Project
940,000
People Killed
Direct deaths — combat & violence
38M
People Displaced
More than any conflict since WWII
0
Objectives Fully Met
Terrorism has increased globally
3.8M
Indirect Deaths
Disease, displacement, destroyed infrastructure
78
Countries with CT Operations
From 1 country to 80+
4.7M
Total Deaths (Direct + Indirect)
Watson Institute estimate
60 Words That Enabled 25 Years of War
On September 14, 2001 — just three days after the attacks — Congress passed the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF). It was 60 words long. Only one member of Congress voted against it: Representative Barbara Lee of California, who warned it would be used as a “blank check.” She was right.
“That the President is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons.”— Authorization for Use of Military Force, Public Law 107-40, September 18, 2001
This single sentence — drafted in 20 minutes, debated for 3 days, intended for Afghanistan — has been used to justify military operations in at least 22 countries across the Middle East, Africa, and Asia. It was used to justify drone strikes in Yemen, special operations in Somalia, air campaigns in Libya, surveillance of American citizens, indefinite detention at Guantánamo, and military operations in countries that didn't exist as conflict zones on 9/11. No subsequent president has asked Congress for new authorization. Every one has used this 60-word sentence instead.
💡 Did You Know?
Representative Barbara Lee's lone “no” vote made her the target of death threats. She received armed security. Years later, both Republican and Democratic lawmakers acknowledged she was right — but the AUMF has never been repealed. As of 2026, it remains the legal basis for US military operations in countries most Americans couldn't find on a map.
From 1 Country to 80+
The War on Terror began as a response to 9/11, targeting Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. It has since metastasized into a global military campaign spanning at least 80 countries — roughly 40% of all nations on Earth. The Costs of War Project at Brown University has documented US counterterrorism operations in:
Major Combat Operations
- • Afghanistan (2001–2021) — 20 years
- • Iraq (2003–2011, 2014–present)
- • Syria (2014–present)
- • Libya (2011, 2015–present)
- • Yemen (2002–present)
- • Somalia (2007–present)
- • Pakistan (2004–2018 drone campaign)
Special Operations & CT Missions
- • Niger, Mali, Cameroon, Chad — Sahel region
- • Philippines — Mindanao operations
- • Kenya, Uganda, Djibouti — East Africa
- • Jordan, Bahrain, Kuwait, UAE — Staging
- • 70+ additional countries — Section 127e programs, training missions, intelligence operations
As journalist Nick Turse documented, US special operations forces deployed to 149 countriesin a single year (2017) — 75% of the world's nations. Most of these deployments were never reported to the public or meaningfully debated in Congress. The “war” grew so large that most Americans have no idea where their military is fighting.
Year-by-Year Cost Breakdown
War-related appropriations only. Does not include long-term veteran care ($2.2T+), interest on war debt ($1.1T+), or homeland security spending ($1T+). Source: Costs of War Project, CRS.
Direct war appropriations shown: $2.2T. The remainder of the $8T total includes veteran care, interest on war borrowing, DHS spending, and DOD base budget increases attributable to the war.
Country-by-Country Death Tolls
Direct deaths from violence. Source: Brown University Costs of War Project, ACLED, Iraq Body Count, SNHR, OCHA.
Civilians: 185,000–209,000 • Direct deaths only; Lancet and ORB surveys estimate 500K–1M+
Civilians: 46,000+ • Plus 70,000 Pakistani civilians from spillover
Civilians: 24,000+ • Drone strikes, military operations, militant violence
Civilians: 19,000+ • US-backed Saudi coalition; "worst humanitarian crisis" per UN
Civilians: 300,000+ • US role: arming rebels, airstrikes, proxy war
Civilians: 4,000+ • Drone strikes and special operations since 2007
Civilians: 10,000+ • 2011 NATO bombing; failed state ever since
Note on indirect deaths: For every person killed directly by violence, an estimated 3–4 die from the indirect effects of war: destroyed hospitals, contaminated water, disrupted food supply, displacement. The Watson Institute estimates the total death toll — direct and indirect — at 4.7 million people.
What the War on Terror Cost You
$53,000
Per taxpayer
$8T ÷ 150M taxpayers
$24,000
Per American
$8T ÷ 335M people
$100,000
Per family of four
Including future interest on war debt
Every family of four in America has paid roughly $100,000 for the War on Terror — enough for a down payment on a house, four years of in-state college tuition, or a lifetime of healthcare premiums. Most of it was borrowed, meaning future generations will continue paying interest on wars their parents and grandparents fought. See your personal tax receipt →
What $8T Could Have Bought Instead
The opportunity cost of 25 years of war.
Free public college for every American
For 10 years (est. $80B/yr)
Universal pre-K for all children
For 10 years
Eliminate all student loan debt
Total outstanding as of 2024
Universal healthcare transition
Estimated transition costs
Rebuild every bridge in America
ASCE infrastructure estimate
End homelessness in the US
HUD estimates over 10 years
Clean water for every human on Earth
WHO/UNICEF estimate
Transition to 100% renewable energy
Over 20 years
With $8T, America could have done all of the above and still had trillions left over. Instead, we got failed states, new enemies, and a national debt approaching $40 trillion.
The Conflicts
War in Afghanistan
2001–2021
$2.3T
Defeat
Global War on Terror (Other Operations)
2001–present
$95B
Ongoing
Iraq War
2003–2011
$2T
Pyrrhic victory / Strategic defeat
Global Drone Campaign
2004–present
$30B
Ongoing
Somalia (AFRICOM Operations)
2007–present
$5B
Ongoing
Libya Intervention
2011–2011
$1.5B
Regime change / State collapse
Niger & Sahel Operations
2013–2024
$750M
Withdrawal
Syrian Civil War Intervention
2014–2025
$30B
Ongoing / ISIS territorial defeat
War Against ISIS
2014–present
$115B
Partial Victory
Yemen War (Saudi Support)
2015–2025
$10B
Ongoing humanitarian catastrophe
Ukraine Military Support
2022–present
$175B
Ongoing
Red Sea / Houthi Campaign
2023–2025
$4.6B
Ceasefire
Iran War (2026)
2026–present
$35B
Ceasefire (Day 39) — Trump declares war 'over' — Blockade tightening
Lebanon: America's Proxy Front (2023–Present)
2023–present
$21.7B
Developing
The Outcomes
Afghanistan — 20 Years, $2.3 Trillion, Back to Square One
After 20 years and $2.3 trillion, the Taliban — the same group the US invaded to remove — returned to power in August 2021. The Afghan military the US spent $83 billion building collapsed in 11 days. 2,461 US troops died. 20,752 were wounded. At least 46,000 Afghan civilians were killed directly. Girls are again banned from school. The entire 20-year project evaporated in less than two weeks.
Iraq — No WMDs, 300,000+ Dead, ISIS Created
No weapons of mass destruction were found. The power vacuum created by the invasion and the disastrous decision to disband the Iraqi military (400,000 armed men sent home with no pay and no future) led directly to the rise of ISIS. Iran — the regime the US was supposedly containing — became the dominant power in Iraq. An estimated 300,000+ civilians died. Cost: $2.4 trillion.
Libya — Open-Air Slave Markets
After US-led NATO bombing removed Gaddafi in 2011, the country collapsed into a failed state with open-air slave markets. Weapons flowed across the Sahel, fueling insurgencies in Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso, and Nigeria. Obama later called it the “worst mistake” of his presidency.
Yemen — “World's Worst Humanitarian Crisis”
US support for Saudi Arabia's bombing campaign created what the UN called “the world's worst humanitarian crisis.” 150,000+ dead, millions facing famine. American bombs — with American targeting intelligence — hit school buses, weddings, and hospitals. The bomb fragments said “Made in USA.”
The Surveillance State
The War on Terror didn't just reshape the Middle East — it reshaped America itself. In the name of “national security,” the US government built the largest surveillance apparatus in human history.
The USA PATRIOT Act (2001)
Passed 45 days after 9/11 with almost no debate. Expanded FBI authority to access financial records, medical records, phone records, and internet activity — without a warrant. Section 215 was later used to justify the NSA's bulk collection of every American's phone records.
NSA Mass Surveillance (revealed 2013)
Edward Snowden revealed that the NSA was collecting metadata on every phone call made in America, reading emails, monitoring internet browsing, and tapping into the servers of Google, Apple, Facebook, and Microsoft through the PRISM program. Director of National Intelligence James Clapper lied to Congress about the program's existence — under oath.
Guantánamo Bay (2002–present)
780 men have been detained at Guantánamo. Many were held for years without charges. 731 have been transferred or released — most without ever being charged with a crime. As of 2025, 15 remain. The facility has cost over $13 million per detainee per year — making it the most expensive prison on Earth.
“They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.”— Benjamin Franklin
The Veteran Aftermath
The War on Terror sent 3 million Americans to war. What happened when they came home is a national disgrace.
17/day
Veteran suicides
6,200+ per year — more than all combat deaths in Afghanistan
1.8M
Veterans with PTSD
11-29% of Iraq/Afghan vets depending on combat exposure
530K+
Traumatic brain injuries
The "signature wound" of Iraq and Afghanistan
37,000
Homeless veterans
On any given night. 1.4M at risk.
$300B+
VA healthcare costs
And rising — peak costs decades away
30%
Unemployment rate (young vets)
First year after discharge
Since 2001, more veterans have died by suicide than in all post-9/11 combat operations combined. The youngest veterans — those aged 18-34 — die by suicide at 2.5× the rate of non-veterans. Many waited months for VA mental health appointments. The VA mental health budget is a fraction of what the Pentagon spends on a single aircraft carrier ($13 billion).
The long-term cost of veteran healthcare will exceed $2.2 trillion according to the Costs of War Project — and the peak hasn't arrived yet. Vietnam-era VA costs peaked 40 years after that war ended. The true cost of Iraq and Afghanistan won't be known until the 2060s.
Who Profited: The Contractors
While 7,057 US troops died and millions of civilians were killed, defense contractors posted record profits year after year. The War on Terror was the most profitable event in the history of the arms industry.
War on Terror contracts: $200B+
F-35, missiles, C-130s — largest defense contractor on Earth
War on Terror contracts: $150B+
Tomahawk missiles ($2M each), Patriot systems, surveillance tech
War on Terror contracts: $130B+
Apache helicopters, bombs, aerial refueling tankers
War on Terror contracts: $45B+
Logistics, base construction, troop support — no-bid contracts under Cheney
War on Terror contracts: $2B+
Private military — Nisour Square massacre killed 17 Iraqi civilians. Pardoned by Trump.
War on Terror contracts: $80B+
Abrams tanks, submarines, IT systems
War on Terror contracts: $90B+
B-2 bombers, Global Hawk drones, cyber warfare
💡 Did You Know?
Vice President Dick Cheney was CEO of Halliburton before taking office. Halliburton's subsidiary KBR received $39.5 billion in no-bid contracts during the Iraq War. Cheney retained stock options worth millions. When asked about it, he said it was “not relevant.” The contracts were later found to have overcharged the government by hundreds of millions of dollars.
The Lies That Launched the Iraq War
The most consequential lies of the 21st century were told to justify invading Iraq:
“We know where they are”
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, March 30, 2003: “We know where [the WMDs] are. They're in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south, and north somewhat.”There were no WMDs anywhere.
The Aluminum Tubes
The Bush administration claimed Iraq was purchasing aluminum tubes for uranium enrichment centrifuges. The Department of Energy's nuclear weapons experts — the people who actually build centrifuges — said the tubes were the wrong specifications and were almost certainly for conventional rockets. Their assessment was overruled. The tubes turned out to be for rockets, exactly as the experts said.
Curveball
The primary source for claims about Iraq's mobile biological weapons labs was an Iraqi defector codenamed “Curveball” — who German intelligence warned was a fabricator and alcoholic. His claims were never independently verified. Colin Powell presented them to the UN as fact. Curveball later admitted he lied.
The Yellowcake Uranium
Bush's 2003 State of the Union: “The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.” The claim was based on forged documents. Ambassador Joseph Wilson was sent to investigate and reported the claim was false. The administration retaliated by leaking the identity of his wife, CIA officer Valerie Plame — a federal crime. Scooter Libby was convicted; Bush commuted his sentence.
Powell at the UN
On February 5, 2003, Secretary of State Colin Powell presented intelligence to the UN Security Council. He held up a vial of white powder. He showed satellite photos. He played intercepted audio. Every claim was wrong. Powell later called it a “blot” on his record and said he felt “terrible” about it. 300,000+ Iraqi civilians died as a result.
“We were all wrong. And that is most disturbing.”— David Kay, head of Iraq Survey Group, after finding no WMDs, 2004
The Decision That Created ISIS
On May 23, 2003, L. Paul Bremer — the head of the Coalition Provisional Authority — signedCPA Order Number 2, dissolving the entire Iraqi military, intelligence services, and Ministry of Defense. In a single stroke, 400,000 armed, trained men were sent home with no pay, no pension, and no future.
The decision was made against the advice of the CIA, the State Department, and multiple military commanders. General Jay Garner, Bremer's predecessor, had planned to recall the Iraqi army and use it for reconstruction. Bremer overruled him.
The consequences were catastrophic and immediate: 400,000 humiliated men with weapons training, weapons access, and nothing to lose formed the backbone of the insurgency. Many joined Al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), which later became ISIS. When ISIS swept across Iraq in 2014, its military leadership included dozens of former Iraqi army and intelligence officers — the same men Bremer had fired 11 years earlier. They drove captured American Humvees and fired captured American weapons.
The disbandment of the Iraqi army is widely considered the single most consequential decision of the Iraq War — and one of the worst strategic decisions in American military history. Every predicted consequence materialized. The people who predicted them were ignored.
De-Baathification: Dismantling a Country
Alongside the military disbandment, Bremer's CPA Order Number 1 banned all senior members of Saddam's Ba'ath Party from government employment. The Ba'ath Party had 2 million members — many of whom joined not out of ideology but because party membership was required for any government job: teachers, doctors, engineers, civil servants.
De-Baathification gutted Iraq's governing capacity overnight. Schools lost teachers. Hospitals lost doctors. Ministries lost administrators. The electrical grid lost engineers. The people who knew how to run the country were banned from doing so. Iraq went from a functioning (if authoritarian) state to institutional chaos.
The policy was explicitly modeled on de-Nazification in post-WWII Germany — but implemented with none of the nuance. In Germany, rank-and-file party members were eventually reintegrated. In Iraq, the purge was sweeping and permanent, creating a massive class of educated, angry, unemployed people with every reason to resist the occupation.
The Drone Wars
The War on Terror pioneered a new form of warfare: death by remote control. From an air-conditioned trailer in Nevada, operators killed people in Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, Libya, and Syria — without congressional debate, judicial review, or meaningful public accountability.
14,000+
Total drone strikes
8,858–16,901
People killed
769–1,725
Confirmed civilians
President Obama — awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2009 — authorized 10× more drone strikes than George W. Bush. He maintained a personal “kill list” reviewed every Tuesday, including the name of at least one American citizen (Anwar al-Awlaki, killed in Yemen in 2011 without trial). Trump then revoked Obama's executive order requiring public reporting of civilian casualties, making the program even less accountable.
The Torture Program
In the aftermath of 9/11, the CIA operated a global network of secret prisons — “black sites” — in at least 7 countries (Afghanistan, Poland, Romania, Lithuania, Thailand, Morocco, and Diego Garcia). In these facilities, detainees were subjected to what the Bush administration called “enhanced interrogation techniques” — a euphemism for torture.
Waterboarding
Simulated drowning. The subject is strapped to a board, face covered with cloth, while water is poured over their face. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was waterboarded 183 times. Abu Zubaydah was waterboarded 83 times. After WWII, the US prosecuted Japanese soldiers as war criminals for waterboarding American POWs. The technique hadn't changed — only the perpetrators.
Sleep Deprivation
Detainees were kept awake for up to 180 hours (7.5 days) continuously — shackled in stress positions, forced to stand, subjected to extreme cold and loud music. The medical consensus is that prolonged sleep deprivation constitutes torture and can cause permanent psychological damage.
Rectal Feeding / “Rectal Rehydration”
The Senate Torture Report documented that detainees were subjected to “rectal rehydration” and “rectal feeding” — forced insertion of pureed food and fluids rectally. CIA medical officers acknowledged this had no medical purpose. It was punishment — sexual assault dressed up as a procedure.
“Walling,” Confinement Boxes, Ice Baths
Detainees were slammed against walls. Confined in coffin-sized boxes for hours. Stripped naked and doused with cold water while chained to the ceiling. One detainee, Gul Rahman, died of hypothermia at a CIA black site in Afghanistan in November 2002 — chained to a concrete floor, half-naked, in near-freezing temperatures. No one was charged with his death.
The 2014 Senate Intelligence Committee report — over 6,700 pages, of which only a 525-page executive summary was declassified — found that the CIA's “enhanced interrogation techniques” were far more brutal than the agency had disclosed to Congress, produced no actionable intelligence that couldn't have been obtained through conventional interrogation, and that the CIA had systematically lied to Congress and the public about the program's effectiveness.
Of the 119 known CIA detainees, at least 26 were later determined to have beenwrongfully held. They were innocent — tortured for months or years for nothing. Not a single CIA officer has been prosecuted. The only person imprisoned in connection with the torture program was John Kiriakou — the CIA officer who blew the whistle on it.
“We tortured some folks.”— President Barack Obama, August 1, 2014
Abu Ghraib: The Photos That Shocked the World
In April 2004, CBS News and The New Yorker published photographs from Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq that showed US military personnel torturing and humiliating Iraqi detainees. The images — naked prisoners stacked in human pyramids, hooded men standing on boxes with electrical wires attached to their bodies, soldiers giving thumbs-up next to corpses, a female soldier holding a naked prisoner on a leash — became the defining images of the Iraq War.
Eleven soldiers were convicted of crimes related to Abu Ghraib. The highest-ranking was astaff sergeant. No officer above the rank of colonel was held accountable. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, who had authorized “enhanced interrogation techniques” for use at Guantánamo and whose policies migrated to Iraq, kept his job until 2006. General Ricardo Sanchez, who commanded all forces in Iraq, was never charged. The message was clear: the enlisted suffer consequences; the powerful do not.
Major General Antonio Taguba, who investigated Abu Ghraib, later said: “There is no longer any doubt as to whether the current administration has committed war crimes. The only question that remains to be answered is whether those who ordered the use of torture will be held to account.” They were not.
Extraordinary Rendition: Outsourcing Torture
When the CIA didn't want to torture people directly, it sent them to countries that would. “Extraordinary rendition” was the program of kidnapping suspected terrorists and flying them to countries like Egypt, Syria, Morocco, Jordan, and Uzbekistan — nations known for brutal interrogation practices — where they were tortured by foreign intelligence services on the CIA's behalf.
Maher Arar, a Canadian citizen born in Syria, was detained by US authorities during a layover at JFK Airport in 2002. He was rendered to Syria, where he was imprisoned for nearly a year and tortured — beaten with electrical cables, confined in a coffin-sized cell. A Canadian inquiry found he had no connection to terrorism whatsoever. The Canadian government apologized and paid him $10.5 million in compensation. The US government has never acknowledged wrongdoing and successfully blocked his lawsuit on “state secrets” grounds.
Khaled El-Masri, a German citizen, was kidnapped by the CIA in Macedonia in 2003, flown to Afghanistan, and tortured for five months. The CIA eventually realized they had thewrong person. He was dumped on a roadside in Albania. The European Court of Human Rights ruled that his treatment constituted torture. The US Supreme Court refused to hear his case.
The Open Society Justice Initiative documented at least 136 individuals who were rendered by the CIA, with the complicity of 54 countries. The full scope of the program remains classified.
Mission Creep: How the War Changed Its Own Goals
The stated objectives shifted constantly — always expanding, never achieved.
Destroy al-Qaeda. Capture or kill bin Laden.
Bin Laden escaped Tora Bora in December. War shifted to Taliban.
Defeat the Taliban. Establish a new Afghan government.
Nation-building begins. Mission expands from counterterrorism to state-building.
Disarm Iraq. Remove Saddam. Eliminate WMD threat.
No WMDs found. 400,000 Iraqi soldiers disbanded. Insurgency begins.
Stabilize Iraq. Counter the insurgency. Build democratic institutions.
Civil war erupts. Sectarian violence peaks at 3,000 deaths/month. Abu Ghraib scandal.
The "surge" — pacify Baghdad. Buy time for political reconciliation.
Violence temporarily decreases. Political reconciliation never happens. Peak spending: $186B/year.
Afghan surge — 100,000 troops. Reverse Taliban gains. Train Afghan forces.
Temporary gains. Corruption undermines Afghan government. Drone wars expand to Yemen, Somalia.
Kill bin Laden. Withdraw from Iraq. Protect Libyan civilians.
Bin Laden killed (after 10 years). Libya bombed into a failed state. Iraq withdrawal creates vacuum.
Defeat ISIS. Re-enter Iraq. Arm Syrian rebels.
ISIS created by Iraq War. CIA-backed rebels fight Pentagon-backed rebels in Syria.
Global counterterrorism. Maintain presence in 80+ countries.
War becomes invisible. Special ops in 149 countries. Drone strikes accelerate. No exit strategy.
Withdraw from Afghanistan. End the "forever war."
Taliban takes over in 11 days. Chaotic evacuation. 13 Americans killed at Abbey Gate. $83B in equipment abandoned.
Over-the-horizon counterterrorism. Global CT operations continue.
Special operations in 80+ countries. CT budget exceeds $50B/yr. War on Terror never actually ended.
The $83 Billion Abandonment
When the US withdrew from Afghanistan in August 2021, it left behind an estimated $83 billion worth of military equipment that the US had provided to the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces — which collapsed without firing a meaningful shot:
75,000
Vehicles
Humvees, MRAPs, trucks
600,000+
Small arms & light weapons
M16s, M4s, machine guns, sniper rifles
208
Aircraft
Black Hawks, A-29s, C-130s, MD-530s
162,000
Pieces of communication equipment
Radios, satellite phones
16,000+
Night vision devices
The Taliban now has night vision
$900M
Ammunition
Millions of rounds
The Taliban — a movement that began with pickup trucks and Kalashnikovs — now possesses one of the best-equipped military forces in the region, courtesy of the American taxpayer. The Afghan air force that the US built is now the Taliban's air force. The weapons that were supposed to fight the Taliban are now wielded by the Taliban. This was arguably the most expensive equipment abandonment in military history.
Reconstruction: Billions Wasted, Nothing Built
The Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) — created specifically to track waste, fraud, and abuse in Afghanistan spending — documented decades of catastrophic waste:
$43 million gas station
DOD spent $43M on a single compressed natural gas filling station in Afghanistan — a station that should have cost $500K. The Pentagon couldn't explain the cost.
$36 million military headquarters — never used
A 64,000 sq ft facility at Camp Leatherneck, built against the objections of military commanders who said it wasn't needed. Completed. Never occupied.
$486 million aircraft — sold for scrap
G222 cargo planes purchased from Italy for the Afghan Air Force. They were unusable and were scrapped for 6 cents per pound — netting $32,000 from a $486 million investment.
$7.8 billion counter-narcotics program
After $7.8B spent fighting opium, Afghanistan's opium production reached record levels. The country produced 80% of the world's heroin.
$4.7 billion crop substitution program
Designed to get farmers to grow legal crops instead of opium. Afghan farmers took the money, planted the alternative crops, then planted poppies in adjacent fields.
"Ghost soldiers" — $300M+/year
Afghan commanders collected salaries for soldiers who didn't exist. At one point, up to 50% of security force personnel may have been "ghosts."
SIGAR's final report, “What We Need to Learn” (2021), concluded that the US government “consistently struggled to develop and implement effective reconstruction strategies” and that the failure was systemic: rotating personnel every 6-12 months ensured no institutional knowledge, metrics were designed to show progress rather than measure reality, and the incentive structure rewarded spending money rather than achieving outcomes.
More Terrorism Than When We Started
The stated goal of the War on Terror was to eliminate terrorism. By every measurable metric, it has done the opposite:
4× more
Active terrorist groups in 2024 vs 2001
RAND Corporation
33 → 67
Countries experiencing significant terrorism
Global Terrorism Index
~400 → 20,000+
Salafi-jihadist fighters (2001 vs 2024)
CSIS Transnational Threats Project
1 → 22+
Countries with active US CT operations
Costs of War Project
A RAND Corporation study found that military force is the least effective method of defeating terrorist organizations. Of 268 terrorist groups studied between 1968 and 2006, only 7% were defeated by military force. The most successful approaches were political accommodation (43%) and policing/intelligence (40%). The US chose the approach with the worst track record — and spent$8T doing so.
“You can't kill your way to victory in a war like this. For every terrorist you kill, you create ten new enemies.”— General Stanley McChrystal, former commander of US forces in Afghanistan
The Afghanistan Papers: They Knew It Was Failing
In December 2019, the Washington Post published the “Afghanistan Papers” — a trove of internal government documents and interviews with 400+ officials, obtained through FOIA litigation, revealing that US officials systematically lied to the public about the war in Afghanistan for nearly two decades.
“We were devoid of a fundamental understanding of Afghanistan — we didn't know what we were doing.”
— Douglas Lute, Three-Star Army General, White House war czar under Bush and Obama
“If the American people knew the magnitude of this dysfunction... 2,400 lives lost. Who will say this was in vain?”
— Douglas Lute
“Every data point was altered to present the best picture possible.”
— Bob Crowley, Army Colonel, counterinsurgency adviser
“The [US] strategy became self-licking ice cream cone.”
— Unnamed senior NSC official
Three presidents — Bush, Obama, and Trump — told the American public that progress was being made. Internally, their own officials knew the war was failing. The parallels to the Pentagon Papers — the Vietnam-era documents showing similar systematic deception — were impossible to miss. The lesson of Vietnam wasn't learned. It was repeated, at even greater cost.
In Historical Context
All costs in 2025 inflation-adjusted dollars.
The War on Terror has cost more than every other American war since 1776 except World War II — and it's still going. Unlike WWII, which lasted 4 years and resulted in the defeat of fascism and the transformation of Europe and Asia, the War on Terror has lasted 25 years, produced no comparable strategic achievement, and arguably left America less safe.
What the Troops Say
“We were told we were bringing democracy to Afghanistan. Twenty years later, the Taliban is back and girls can't go to school. My friends died for nothing. I don't know how to process that.”
— Army veteran, 3 tours Afghanistan, NPR interview 2021
“The war was a lie. Not just Iraq — all of it. We weren't defending America. We were defending contractor profits and politicians' careers.”
— Marine veteran, 2 tours Iraq, Costs of War Project interview
“The hardest part isn't the memories of combat. It's watching the same people who sent us to war get rich off it while my buddy kills himself in a VA parking lot.”
— Army medic veteran, Iraq, Reddit AMA 2023
A 2023 Pew survey found that 73% of veterans said the Iraq War was “not worth fighting.” 62% said the same about Afghanistan. The people who actually fought these wars overwhelmingly believe they were a mistake.
The Libertarian Case Against the War on Terror
From a liberty perspective, the War on Terror represents the most catastrophic expansion of government power in American history. It has eroded virtually every protection the Constitution was designed to provide:
Due Process (5th Amendment)
American citizens killed by drone strikes without trial. Indefinite detention without charges at Guantánamo.
Protection from Unreasonable Search (4th Amendment)
NSA mass surveillance of every American's phone records, emails, and internet activity — without warrants.
Congressional War Power (Article I)
60 words used to authorize military operations in 22+ countries over 25 years without a new vote.
Protection from Cruel & Unusual Punishment (8th Amendment)
Waterboarding, sleep deprivation, rectal feeding — torture, euphemized as "enhanced interrogation."
Freedom from Warrantless Surveillance (4th Amendment)
PATRIOT Act Section 215, FISA Court rubber-stamps, National Security Letters without judicial review.
Right to Trial (6th Amendment)
Military commissions at Guantánamo bypass civilian courts. Secret evidence. Classified proceedings.
“The Patriot Act was written many, many years before 9/11. The attacks of 9/11 provided the opportunity for it to be passed. Crises always serve as the catalyst for growing government power.”— Ron Paul
“We should not be in the business of nation-building. It doesn't work. It never has worked. It's not constitutional. And it costs the American taxpayer trillions.”— Senator Rand Paul
James Madison warned in 1795 that “war is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes; and armies, and debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few.” The War on Terror has confirmed every word: $8Tin debt, a permanent military establishment, a surveillance state, and the concentration of war-making power in a single individual unchecked by Congress or the courts. The Founders' worst fears, realized in their entirety.
The PATRIOT Act: How Fear Killed the Fourth Amendment
The USA PATRIOT Act — “Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism” — was signed into law on October 26, 2001, just 45 days after 9/11. The 342-page bill was introduced on October 23 and voted on October 25. Most members of Congress later admitted they hadn't read it.
Section 215: Bulk Data Collection
Used by the NSA to justify collecting metadata on every phone call made in America — who called whom, when, for how long. The FISA Court approved the collection in secret orders. When Edward Snowden revealed the program in 2013, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper denied it existed — under oath, before Congress. He was never prosecuted for perjury.
National Security Letters (NSLs)
NSLs allow the FBI to demand customer records from banks, phone companies, and internet providerswithout a warrant or judicial review. The recipient is subject to a gag order — they cannot tell anyone, including the target, that the records were demanded. Between 2003 and 2006, the FBI issued 192,499 NSLs. A 2007 audit found widespread abuse and violations of even the Act's limited safeguards.
Sneak and Peek Warrants
Section 213 authorized “sneak and peek” search warrants — allowing law enforcement to search homes without notifying the occupant until later. Sold as a counterterrorism tool, only 0.5% of sneak-and-peek warrants have been used for terrorism cases. The vast majority (62%) are used for drug cases. The PATRIOT Act's surveillance tools were repurposed for the drug war almost immediately.
PRISM and Upstream Collection
The NSA's PRISM program — revealed by Snowden — gave the agency direct access to the servers of Google, Apple, Facebook, Microsoft, Yahoo, and other tech companies. “Upstream” collection tapped directly into the fiber optic cables carrying internet traffic. The NSA was reading emails, monitoring chats, and accessing cloud storage of millions of Americans — all under a secret interpretation of laws most Americans had never heard of.
“The NSA is turning the internet into a total surveillance system. They're not just listening to terrorists. They're listening to everyone. And they're storing it.”— Edward Snowden, 2013
Where Did the $8T Go?
Costs of War Project breakdown of total War on Terror spending.
Note that future veteran care ($2.2T) and interest on borrowing ($1.1T) are the largest single categories — and they will continue growing for decades. The peak cost of caring for War on Terror veterans won't arrive until the 2050s or 2060s. We are still in the early stages of paying for these wars.
The War Economy: Who Won?
If the War on Terror was a failure in military and humanitarian terms, it was an extraordinary success for the defense industry and the national security state:
Defense contractors
Stock prices up 1,000%+. Combined revenue: $400B+/year. Record profits every year since 2001.
Intelligence agencies
16 intelligence agencies → 17. NSA budget tripled. DIA expanded massively. New agencies created (DNI, NCTC).
Private military companies
Blackwater, DynCorp, Triple Canopy earned billions. Private contractors outnumbered US troops in both theaters.
Surveillance companies
Palantir, Booz Allen, SAIC, Leidos built empires on War on Terror contracts. Surveillance tech developed for war came home.
Congressional hawks
Defense committee members receive largest campaign contributions. War = political power.
Executive branch
Presidential war powers expanded enormously. Surveillance authority. Kill lists. Indefinite detention.
The losers: 900,000+ dead. 38 million displaced. 130,000+ veteran suicides. $8 trillion in debt. Constitutional rights eroded. And an America less safe, less free, and less respected than before September 11, 2001.
Sources & Further Reading
• Costs of War Project, Watson Institute, Brown University — Primary source for cost and casualty data. watson.brown.edu/costsofwar
• Senate Intelligence Committee Study of the CIA's Detention and Interrogation Program (2014) — The “Torture Report.” 525-page declassified executive summary.
• The Afghanistan Papers, Washington Post (2019) — Thousands of pages of internal documents showing systematic deception about the war.
• SIGAR Reports — Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction. Quarterly reports documenting waste, fraud, and failure.
• Iraq Body Count — Database of documented civilian deaths from violence in Iraq. iraqbodycount.org
• Bureau of Investigative Journalism — Drone strike data: Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, Afghanistan. thebureauinvestigates.com
• Congressional Research Service — “Costs of Major U.S. Wars” reports and annual defense budget analyses.
• RAND Corporation — “How Terrorist Groups End” (2008). Study of 268 terrorist organizations.
• Ron Paul, Swords into Plowshares (2015) — Libertarian case against interventionism.
• Chalmers Johnson, Blowback trilogy (2000-2006) — Definitive analysis of imperial consequences.
• Smedley Butler, War Is a Racket (1935) — The original insider critique of war profiteering.
“In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex.”
— President Dwight D. Eisenhower, Farewell Address, 1961
“War is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives.”
— Major General Smedley Butler, War Is a Racket, 1935
“Of all the enemies to public liberty, war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes; and armies, and debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few.”
— James Madison, 1795
Did It Make Us Safer?
The number of terrorist organizations worldwide has increased since 2001. The number of countries experiencing significant terrorism has increased. Al-Qaeda, which the entire war was supposed to destroy, still exists — in more countries than in 2001. The Taliban, which we spent 20 years fighting, runs Afghanistan again. ISIS, which didn't exist before the Iraq War, rose from the chaos we created.
The State Department's own annual terrorism reports show a steady increase in terrorist attacks worldwide since 2001. A RAND Corporation study found that military force was the least effective method of defeating terrorist organizations — political accommodation and policing were far more successful.
We spent $8T. We killed 940,000 people. We displaced 37 million. We destabilized a region. We shredded civil liberties. We created new enemies. And the threat is still here — arguably worse than when we started.
💡 Did You Know?
- • The War on Terror cost more (inflation-adjusted) than World War I, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War combined.
- • If you stacked $8T in $100 bills, the pile would be 5,400 miles tall — roughly the distance from New York to Tokyo.
- • The US has spent more on air conditioning for troops in Iraq and Afghanistan ($20B/yr) than NASA's entire annual budget.
- • More Americans have been killed by gun violence at home since 9/11 (~550,000) than in all post-9/11 wars (~7,000 combat deaths).
- • The 2001 AUMF has been cited to justify operations in 22 countries — 19 of which had nothing to do with 9/11.
- • The Pentagon has never passed an audit. In its 7th consecutive failed audit (2024), auditors couldn't account for $3.8 trillion in transactions.
The Bottom Line
“Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.”— President Dwight D. Eisenhower, “Chance for Peace” speech, 1953
The War on Terror is the defining catastrophe of 21st-century America. It consumed $8Tthat could have transformed American life — free college, universal healthcare, rebuilt infrastructure, clean energy. Instead, it killed 940,000 people, displaced 37 million, created new terrorist organizations, enabled mass surveillance of American citizens, enriched defense contractors, and left veterans to kill themselves at a rate of 17 per day.
The war was authorized by 60 words, written in 20 minutes, that have been stretched across 25 years, 80+ countries, and 4 presidential administrations. It was launched to fight one terrorist organization in one country. It became a global, permanent, self-perpetuating war machine that creates the very enemies it claims to fight.
It is the most expensive failure in American history. And it's still going.
Related
Afghanistan — 20 Years →
$2.3T spent. Taliban back in power.
Iraq War — The $2.4T Mistake →
No WMDs. 300,000+ dead. ISIS created.
Drone Wars →
Remote-control killing. 14,000+ strikes.
Who Decides? →
The erosion of congressional war powers.
Blowback →
How the War on Terror created more enemies.
Your Tax Receipt →
See how much of your taxes funded the War on Terror.