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The cost of upkeep of the world’s darkest empire
The most costly military operations since WWII, as estimated by the Russian news agency RIA Novosti, are as follows:
1. The US ‘War on Terror’ (waged on Iraq, Afghanistan): Up to $6 Trillion
The cost of War on Terror, the biggest war racket in the American history, easily dwarfs that of World War II, estimated at about $3 trillion (inflation adjusted.)
… the War on Terror has cost the US-led Coalition thousands of soldiers’ lives, with tens of thousands more injured. Neither the War in Iraq nor the NATO War in Afghanistan can be said to have been even a qualified success. Following over a decade of sectarian violence, large swathes of western Iraq are now occupied by Daesh Islamist militants. Afghanistan, meanwhile, has seen the Taliban regain control over large areas of the country as the NATO mission winds down. Read more…
2. Vietnam War: $738 Billion
“Vietnam War, which lasted eight years, would cost the US $738 billion [in 2011 dollars] and more than 58,000 US military personnel.”
3. Korean War: $341 Billion
“Allied carpet bombing is estimated to have destroyed upwards of three quarters of North Korea’s population centers; in all, the US dropped 635,000 tons of bombs, including 32,000 tons of napalm, on the peninsula, which is more than the total dropped during the entirety of the US’s Pacific campaign in WWII.”
- The three-year war left an estimated 2.5 million people dead, and more than 1.5 million other wounded. About 400,000 others were declared abducted or missing.
4. Gulf War: Operation ‘Desert Storm’: $102 Billion
The depleted uranium munition used during the 42-day Operation Desert Storm “were estimated to have dramatically increased cancer rates among Iraqi military personnel and civilians, with government statistics showing cancer rates rising from 40 per 100,000 people before the Gulf War in 1991, to 800 per 100,000 in 1995, to over 1,600 per 100,000 in 2005.”
5. The NATO Bombing Campaign in Yugoslavia: $43 Billion
The 78-day NATO campaign, code-named Operation Allied Force, “saw attacks by Allied aircraft against military targets and civilian infrastructure in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY),” which cost the organization about $43 billion. Read more…
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