The Biden administration’s decision to send a THAAD missile defense system and 100 U.S. personnel to operate and support it marks the latest upsurge in U.S. support for Israel’s multi-front war in its region. The costs of that support are mounting rapidly, and the deployment of U.S. troops to Israeli soil increases the risk of direct U.S. involvement in the conflicts.

The human costs of the wars in Gaza and Lebanon are heart-wrenching—40,000 dead in Gaza, many of them women and children; millions of people displaced; and lack of access to health care and clean water, just for starters. These casualties of war are the most devastating consequence of the conflicts and underscore the need to end the U.S. arms transfers to Israel that are fueling the war.

But there is another category of cost that has received less attention—the billions of U.S. tax dollars that are subsidizing the Israeli war effort and the ongoing U.S. buildup of troops, ships, and aircraft in the region. In a new report for the Brown Costs of War project, which I co-authored with my colleagues Linda Bilmes and Stephen Semler, we estimate that........

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