Afghanistan War Spending in Perspective
(dod photo)
This isn’t exactly the point he’s making, but this observation from Mark Kleiman sure is striking:
US expenditure budget for Afghanistan this year is to be $65 billion; I’m not sure how much NATO and other countries add to that. The US budget alone is more than 5 times the Afghan GDP of $12.5B ($400 per capita).
This seems to me to really throw into relief some questions about the efficacy of what we’re doing there. If Afghanistan’s total output is only worth $12.5 billion, then think about how much you might be able to accomplish with $6.5 billion a year in bribes rather than ten times that amount in defense expenditures. Meanwhile in the real world all signs point toward an additional increase in the quantity of resources dedicated to the Afghan war.
30 Responses to “Afghanistan War Spending in Perspective”
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August 6th, 2009 at 4:52 pm
If our political leaders could think with their heads instead of their dicks and pocketbooks, I’m sure this would have happened a long time ago. Sure, we could quintuple the incomes of everyone in Afghanistan, but won’t somebody please think of the defense contractors?
August 6th, 2009 at 4:53 pm
This might be relevant here:
On the other hand, are we sure those Afghan shepherds won’t invade Manhattan the very next day if the US troops ever leave?
August 6th, 2009 at 4:54 pm
As long as the left doesn’t have a problem with committing criminal acts as long as it’s cheap, then I’m assuming the left wouldn’t have a problem wiping out all Al Qaeda and Taliban controlled villages, civilians included, since that would be cheaper than what we’re doing now as well.
August 6th, 2009 at 4:56 pm
Pay them the going world price for their opium.
Burn the stuff.
Repeat.
You not only save on military costs but you can fire 80% of the War on Drugs seat-warmers. Win-win.
August 6th, 2009 at 4:59 pm
It’s a bold assumption that the U.S. particularly wants to be economical in Afghanistan. I assume the Blackwaters and Halliburtons of the world are making a tidy sum off this little war. I imagine a lot of money sloshing around is a feature, not a bug.
August 6th, 2009 at 5:04 pm
Wouldn’t it be cheaper just to leave Afghanistan and instead erect on the Washington Mall a giant statue of Barack Obama punching Osama bin Laden in the face?
August 6th, 2009 at 5:05 pm
What good would bribes do in the absence of a well-funded international force? Why wouldn’t that money just get funneled to the Taliban? Given Yglesias’ previous skepticism on adopting an Iraq-style surge-n-bribes strategy in Afghanistan, I’m surprised he thinks that bribes alone would be effective.
August 6th, 2009 at 5:11 pm
I thought about this a lot in the run up to the Iraq war. As I recall Iraq’s GNP was about $50B. Why spend ten times fighting a war and getting people killed? Couldn’t we have toppled Saddam and then just hired the entire Iraqi workforce at twice their current salary for 3 years to build their own infrastructure, and still come out ahead financially?
August 6th, 2009 at 5:17 pm
Buying off Afghanistan isn’t a completely nutty idea. But, we need to keep in mind the (un)intended consequences.
I’ve been thinking along johnyk’s (#4) line for a year or two. We tried buying opium to buy cooperation from some of the Hmong growers in Laos back in the day. This broke down because 1) it was in secret, which led to 2) some CIA operatives skimming the product for resale.
This could work in Afghanistan, but once you start, it’ll be a bitch to stop. The US Federal Government would then be creating the market for opium production, and depending on the price, this might lead to increased production. The price would need to be significantly above current market price so that you’re getting virtually *all* of the production, such that the Talibs can’t complete.
With all of that shit on our hands, there is going to be skimming. Since the program would be above board, probably not Vietnam-scale skimming, but there will be some diversion. This’ll lead to some bad PR, which with the long term financing of the Afghan economy, would eventually lead to Congress cutting funding, leading to a market crash in Afghanistan, and a flood of cheap heroin on the market.
A better bribe alternative would be to pay farmers *not* to farm opium, anything else would be fine. This might be difficult to police. A possibility would be to pay a district’s government and police based on the lack of opium detected (aerial photography, plus some random ground visits). If a district isn’t in compliance, the farmers, governors, and police all get cut off until they come clean.
The problem again is that to trump what opium cultivation and/or carrying a rifle for the Talibs would pay, you’re gonna have to fork over some pretty good dough, and keep it coming. How the inflationary pressures would pan out is a whole ‘nother issue.
August 6th, 2009 at 5:18 pm
Couldn’t we have toppled Saddam and then just hired the entire Iraqi workforce at twice their current salary for 3 years to build their own infrastructure, and still come out ahead financially?
No because that would have been a government takeover; free market is better, even if the actual market has been carpet-bombed. One of Bremer’s first priorities was privatizing health care in Iraq (after disbanding the army).
August 6th, 2009 at 5:23 pm
To make the bribes work at all, you’ll need to find a way for the funds to bypass the Afghan federal and local government bodies. Otherwise, the stealing will be epic, and I predict little if any cash would make it to the farmers or cops in the field.
Either way, there would be some hard feelings.
August 6th, 2009 at 5:24 pm
Meanwhile,
On the other hand, nobody really cares.
August 6th, 2009 at 5:26 pm
Pay them the going world price for their opium.
Burn the stuff.
Repeat.
You not only save on military costs but you can fire 80% of the War on Drugs seat-warmers. Win-win.
Shrug.
Pay them that same price to grow something the world needs more of that also grows well in the area.
Give the stuff away to the hungry/needy.
Repeat.
August 6th, 2009 at 5:30 pm
I like that plan. Instead of paying the market rate for opium, why not offer the same price for whatever non-drug crop they want to grow. Sadly, I suspect the end result would just be the warlords shooting people in order to control the wheat crops.
August 6th, 2009 at 5:32 pm
# 13 — there is not much that grows in Afghanistan that is competetive on the international market besides opium. Pomegranates and other sliver market fruits are a possibility but you run into a water/irrigation constraint pretty quickly. Wheat is cheaper to import than to grow etc.
August 6th, 2009 at 5:36 pm
It’s nice to see folks in the comments who appreciate that things are a wee bit more complex than MattY makes out.
Stuff like this and Atrios’ sulky petulance on Afghanistan are good reminders of why conservative beat liberals to death on national defense for decades.
Mike
August 6th, 2009 at 5:40 pm
Um … methinks some folks missed the snark on this one. Or I’m being too charitable in my reading. Not sure.
Regardless, spending $65 billion for military operations at this point is stupid.
Spending that much (or even a bit more) helping to rebuild the country, modernize what needs it, and making sure the people know we’re not just going to abandon them like Reagan and BushI did, is a smart investment.
August 6th, 2009 at 6:09 pm
Does that GDP number include poppies and processed drugs? Either way it’s a profound joke. On us. On them.
The place is not even a nation in the modern sense. It’s borders have been intact a long time but the culture is pre modern and essentially tribal.
When the question comes up if we should give up in the end we won’t because it is a tangential but possibly could be an important part of Pipelineistan. At least it is adjacent.
August 6th, 2009 at 6:14 pm
Ya want snark? Try this (all below via Greg Djerejian):
Lunch w/ the FT...
…last weekend, with Rory Stewart. I blog the lunch interview really for this snippet:
“Since arriving at Harvard in June last year, he has been consultant to several members of Barack Obama’s administration, including Hillary Clinton, and is a member of Richard Holbrooke’s special committee for Afghanistan and Pakistan policy. “I do a lot of work with policymakers, but how much effect am I having?” he asks, pronging a mussel out of its shell.
“It’s like they’re coming in and saying to you, ‘I’m going to drive my car off a cliff. Should I or should I not wear a seatbelt?’ And you say, ‘I don’t think you should drive your car off the cliff.’ And they say, ‘No, no, that bit’s already been decided – the question is whether to wear a seatbelt.’ And you say, ‘Well, you might as well wear a seatbelt.’ And then they say, ‘We’ve consulted with policy expert Rory Stewart and he says …’”
You want analysis from someone who is intimately familiar with the country and its culture? Try this (longer Rory Stewart): http://www.lrb.co.uk/v31/n13/stew01_.html
Nation building? Counterinsurgency? Specific police action re: Al Qaeda? Democracy? Poppy eradication? Thank goodness these aren’t the same people who are driving health care reform.
BTW, Matt, we say “incentives” not “bribes.” Bribes are enforced. Incentives, not so much. Just ask all those banks who got TARP funds, guarantees, and free money and who have “disappointed” the Treasury Department on credit and mortgage default work-outs. This is democratic capitalism, not anarchy. Please.
August 6th, 2009 at 6:22 pm
No Mike, even if Matt’s was the Democratic Party’s position on Afghanistan, it still beats the fuck out of bombing the place into the stone age – which is the default Republican position (c.f. McCain’s “bomb, bomb, bomb; bomb, bomb, Iran”).
No one can defend the Republican record on “defense” over the past 50 years. Not without attempting to justify a lot of innocent civilian deaths.
August 6th, 2009 at 6:35 pm
Or perhaps conservatives “beat liberals to death” (your words) on national “defense” because it’s so easy to convince a broad swathe of the populace that they are safer when the warriors under their flag are brutally killing scores of people abroad on a constant basis.
Perhaps it is because the same people who do this convincing also convince those who already have wealth that those without it are immoral and unworthy of attention, education, health care, and all the environmental factors that stimulate people to attain lives of wealth for themselves.
But no, things are only complicated elsewhere. In America, they are so simple.
August 6th, 2009 at 7:52 pm
It remains painful to remember that:
* we suckered the USSR into their own Viet Nam in Afghanistan and laughed about it all the way to the point the Empire crumbled
* we’ve suckered ourselves into Afghanistan & Iraq and don’t see that we’re sending ourselves over the cliff in pursuit of an Empire
$65 billion for Afghanistan. Matt’s point about $6.5B in bribes is 50% right.
Think about how much we’d be able to accomplish with $6.5B in bribes and $58.5B to spend inside our own borders to fix our own fucked up country.
Think about all of the stupid questions that are being tossed at people to whip them up on healthcare. If someone just started a focused campaign on how much we’re spending each year on Iraq and Afghanistan, and ask people if they’d rather spend it inside the US… 80% in support? Even some of the wingnuts would rather spend it in the US.
John
August 6th, 2009 at 8:18 pm
[...] Unidos ha presupuestado 65.000 millones de dólares para su esfuerzo militar en Afganistán este [...]
August 6th, 2009 at 8:36 pm
Any rational person wouldn’t give a fuck about Afghanistan, wouldn’t give a fuck about opium, but would be perfectly content to leave the former alone and let it get rich growing the latter. Of course, rational people do not make and almost never have made US foreign (or drug) policy.
August 6th, 2009 at 8:59 pm
Don’t worry, guys. John McCain is in the Oval office as we speak, filling Obama in on just how we catch Osama. This will all be over by Sunday, and we’ll be withdrawing by Monday afternoon at the latest.
August 6th, 2009 at 9:40 pm
[...] Unidos ha presupuestado 65.000 millones de dólares para su esfuerzo militar en Afganistán este [...]
August 7th, 2009 at 1:22 am
Pay them the going world price for their opium.
Burn the stuff.
Repeat.
You not only save on military costs but you can fire 80% of the War on Drugs seat-warmers. Win-win.
Or for free you could just legalize drugs and cut off funding for all the biggest criminal orginizations in the world.
August 7th, 2009 at 1:28 am
It is a bitter pill to swallow, isn’t it? Having the easy knowledge of how to win, all the different methods, but knowing those methods will never be used.
Think back. The Soviet Union eventually lost Afghanistan despite absorbing the country in a quick and extremely efficient anschluss involving 100,000 troops. Now think of the hubris of American planners, who thought we could invade the same country and win a great victory despite the fact that the initial phase of the invasion consisted of parachuting in some out of shape CIA operatives and a few hundred Navy Seals.
The stupidity is mind numbing. And it continues. There are options. We could bribe. Build autobahns and give away cars. Legalize heroin in the US and import only Afghani product. Offer $1 billion for bin Laden, $50 million for each of his underlings. We could put 80,000 nation builders on the ground.
Instead, we will continue to seek battle -with ghosts- and spend trillions doing so.
August 7th, 2009 at 10:08 am
Offer $1 billion for bin Laden, $50 million for each of his underlings.
And then bin Laden gets together with a few underlings that aren’t on the list yet and says “Turn me over to the Americans, they’ll martyr me, use the money for the cause, see you in Paradise.” Bin Laden is not a mafia boss, he’s a religious zealot who believes in his cause.
I think putting a reward on bin Laden, dead or alive, might be a good idea, but you have to be careful how you choose the amount, because graveyards are full of irreplaceable men, and that’s just as true for terrorist organizations as any other (if not more so). If the money does more for al Qaeda than bin Laden does (either through his actual ability at running the organization, or through the glamour in certain circles of having successfully attacked the US and being the man the US wants to kill but can’t), then killing him would prove not worth it (unless the money goes to one of his enemies instead).
It’s also possible that putting any reward on his head, let alone paying it, would just add to his legend, and if bin Laden the symbol is more dangerous than bin Laden the man, it’s better not to do that.
August 13th, 2009 at 12:05 pm
[...] Unidos ha presupuestado 65.000 millones de dólares para su esfuerzo militar en Afganistán este [...]