“Since September 11, 2001, the Department of Defense (DoD) has obligated $1,500.8 billion for war-related costs.”
That’s the headline from the latest report to Congress on the post-9/11 costs of war, according to the Pentagon’s own reckoning. See Cost of War Update as of March 31, 2018 (FY 2018, Quarter 2).
Independent estimates of military spending that use a broader definition of the term yield a considerably higher total.
The new DoD report provides a detailed retrospective account of post-9/11 military spending, broken down by theater (Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria), by fiscal year, and by military service. A copy was obtained by Secrecy News.
The fraction of war-related funds that were appropriated to DoD in the post-9/11 period for classified purposes totaled $88 billion, the report said.
The 76-page DoD report itself exemplifies a certain financial profligacy, with a price tag that is orders of magnitude higher than one might have supposed. “The cost to the Department of Defense to prepare and assemble this report is approximately $209,000 for FY 2018,” the document states.
In recent months, we’ve seen much of these decades’ worth of progress erased. Contracts for evaluations of government programs were canceled, FFRDCs have been forced to lay off staff, and federal advisory committees have been disbanded.
This report outlines a framework relying on “Cooperative Technical Means” for effective arms control verification based on remote sensing, avoiding on-site inspections but maintaining a level of transparency that allows for immediate detection of changes in nuclear posture or a significant build-up above agreed limits.
At a recent workshop, we explored the nature of trust in specific government functions, the risk and implications of breaking trust in those systems, and how we’d known we were getting close to specific trust breaking points.
tudents in the 21st century need strong critical thinking skills like reasoning, questioning, and problem-solving, before they can meaningfully engage with more advanced domains like digital, data, or AI literacy.