We know the bitter costs of war — lost lives, broken bodies, physical devastation and untold human anguish. But what — actually — does a war cost, in dollars? During World War II, it was one of Luther Gulick’s jobs with the War Production Board to scope out the military budget for President Roosevelt. A document from July 1942, stamped, “Secret”, forecast the “Total war program” for the year as costing $63.7 billion — equivalent to $929 billion in today’s dollars. For 1943 the forecast went up to $104.4 billion — $1.43 trillion today. And the war had almost two more years to run.
Three months later, another document in Gulick’s War Production Board files offered slightly scaled down objectives for 1943 — $92.2 billion, or $1.35 trillion today, including FDR’s “must” list estimated at $48.8 billion, or $712 billion today. That included $37 billion for aircraft ($540 billion today) and $2.7 billion (almost $40 billion today) in aid to the Soviet Union, then bearing the brunt of the Nazi onslaught.
In all, according to the Congressional Research Service, World War II cost the US $4.1 trillion in today’s dollars. Since 9/11, Congress has appropriated one-quarter as much — about $1 trillion — for the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere.