While wars always come with an added cost to taxpayers, a public policy expert is saying the Trump administration’s military efforts in Iran, which include attacking infrastructure and a blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, could drag on and come with tremendous costs to the American people—and long term, the projections are alarming.
That’s according to Linda Bilmes, a senior lecturer in Public Policy and public finance expert at Harvard’s Kennedy School. She says that the war is already costing about $2 billion a day, but that’s only “the tip of the iceberg.”
In a recent interview, Bilmes said that while the Pentagon said the war cost around $11.3 billion in the first few days of the war alone, that’s an “underestimate,” and the true cost is much higher.
“According to my calculations, those first few days cost at least $16 billion,” Bilmes explained. “We are spending down munitions at an extraordinarily fast pace—to put it in perspective, we fired more Patriot missiles in the first four days of the Iran war than we have given to Ukraine over the past four years,” she said.
The researcher asserted that short-term costs are adding up quickly, as “we are losing high-cost assets,” but it’s the long-term costs that are most troubling. For starters, Bilmes said it’s important not to overlook the cost of human life, which is already being lost. Thousands of Iranians, including at least 1,700 civilians, have already lost their lives to the war. Hundreds of U.S. soldiers have been injured with at least 13 dead. Financially speaking, the cost of medical and disability care for veterans will be substantial. So will be the increase in the defense budget, which Bilmes explained could become permanent.
“The president is proposing roughly a 50% increase in the defense budget,” Bilmes explained. “If enacted in full, that would push defense spending to levels about 20% higher than the peak reached during World War II. This raises the baseline. Even if Congress does not agree to approve the full increase, it is highly likely that at least $100 billion per year will be added to the base defense budget that would not have been approved in the absence of this war.”
Bilmes says those costs add up to at least $100 billion per year. “I am certain we will reach $1 trillion for the Iran war,” Bilmes explained.
While the projections are no doubt troubling, Americans are already paying for the war. Gas prices recently saw the largest jump in about 60 years, which means that air travel costs are also up. And on Tuesday, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) warned that if the conflict continues to escalate, we could face a global recession.
As the costs of the war are adding up quickly, Bilmes is urging that the financial impacts, which so far have been underestimated, will spread far and wide. “There are many dangers, but they are not all military threats,” Bilmes says.