Foreign Aid

Matthew Petti | 10.8.2024 9:53 AM

War is not cheap, especially not the past year of Middle Eastern wars. While Israelis, Palestinians, Lebanese, and others pay with their lives by the tens of thousands, Americans are paying much of the financial cost of keeping the violence going.

A new study by the Costs of War Project at Brown University pinned down exactly what that cost is: at least $22.76 billion from October 7, 2023, to September 30, 2024. The bulk of the money, $17.9 billion, was spent on U.S. aid to the Israeli military—both financial grants given to Israel to purchase weapons, and the cost of replacing munitions such as artillery shells sent directly from American stockpiles to the Israeli army.

"The United States can walk and chew gum at the same time, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin told reporters on October 13, 2023. "U.S. security assistance to Israel will flow in at the speed of war."

But the U.S. military itself has also burned through expensive ammunition dealing with the spillover of the war into Yemen, Syria, and Iraq.

The study only counts the direct burden on the U.S. military budget. It doesn't include indirect costs, "such as increased U.S. security assistance to Egypt, Saudi Arabia or any other countries, and........

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