For more than 15 years, the Costs of War project at Brown University has published research on the consequences of U.S. defense spending and military operations. Its goal is to promote public awareness of the human, economic and social impacts of American military engagement.
As the U.S. war in Iran continues, project director Stephanie Savell sat down with Ocean State Media’s Ian Donnis to discuss the conflict, its effects on average Americans, and the influence of defense contractors on U.S. military decisions.
Interview highlights
On the economic and human costs of the war in Iran
Stephanie Savell: Well, one of the things we always have to remember is that war costs way more than political leaders are going to say at the beginning. It is a consistent thing in the past since 9/11 that political leaders have said war would be quick and efficient and cheap, and that has been the opposite of the case. So when you hear the Pentagon’s recent claims, for example, that the war in Iran has cost $25 billion, that is just the very smallest tip of the iceberg. That’s basically the value of munitions used so far, but there are so many other costs that come into calculating the true costs of war. And that’s just the dollar figure, of course. I think we have to really remember that people have died in this war; people in Iran, people in Lebanon; there was a school hit. So we just have to always keep the human costs in mind, as well.
On the long-term consequences of the war in Iran
Savell: My colleague Jeff Colgan at Brown has been calculating the extra cost that Americans have been spending [in] gas and diesel. It’s something on the order of $32 billion extra just for Americans. What I’ve been hearing experts talk about is the fact that those increased fuel costs are not – even if the war in Iran were to end tomorrow – going to go back down anytime soon. There’s a lot of speculation that those costs are just going to stay high for quite some time to come.
…We owe about $31 trillion in debt, and a big part of that comes from the post 9/11 wars and the four tax cuts since 2001. Now, before the post 9/11 era, the U.S. budget was, for a time, balanced. So around the beginning of the Iraq war, we had about $4 trillion in debt. Now it’s $31 (trillion). These are credit card wars. The post 9/11 wars and this war in Iran are wars that don’t touch Americans, in part, because we are passing the cost to future generations.
On the influence of defense contractors in America
Savell: I don’t think people know enough about how our political system is completely shaped by how much money the Defense Department gives to these military contractors. So of about a trillion dollar annual Pentagon budget, those companies – the bigs are manufacturers like Boeing and Lockheed Martin – are earning over half of that annually now. And the military industrial complex is a big reason why we take this military-style approach to foreign policy.
I think we’re hearing a lot more about the ways that the overspending on the military could be spent in other ways. And I think we hear a lot of political leaders and journalists doing the kind of dollar-for-dollar equation. One that really sticks out for me is in the amount of money that we’ve spent on just preparing for war with China, for example, $3.4 trillion, we could have paid for 80 years of free college education for all Americans. Eighty years. Like, it’s astronomical, these sums. That’s precisely the point, is to ask, “What could we be doing with these dollars instead?”
The answer is going to vary. Some people are going to say, “You know, let’s get our budget less out of the red. Let’s be more fiscally responsible. Let’s use the money to pay off the deficit,” right? So you could have a good debate about how to use the money were it not to be overspent on these military expenditures that arguably aren’t keeping anyone safer.
On the importance of defense spending to the Rhode Island economy
Savell: So my colleague, Heidi Peltier, who’s an economist; she has come out with research over the years that shows that per dollar spent, the government could create far more jobs in other sectors of the economy, like education and health care, than in military spending. And why is that? That’s because military spending is very capital-intensive rather than labor-intensive. So here I’m talking about things like spending on equipment and, kind of, high-tech spending, as opposed to education or health care, which is very labor-intensive (where) the dollars are going into people’s salaries.
So I think (the) myth that military spending creates jobs; when I say it’s a myth, it’s not that it’s not true at all. Of course, it creates some jobs. It’s just that it’s not as an efficient job creator as we’ve all been led to believe, and actually that there are societally beneficial ways that the money could be spent and also create more jobs. And arguably, education, health care, (and) green energy are just a few examples.
