I think I posted a version of my cost of war analysis a few weeks ago. I have updated it and include it below in case you missed it.
I am writing about this again because I have new information that indicates our official estimate of the Muslim militant population in Iraq is now 20% or 5,500,000. That is down from the previous estimate of 25%. The change is based on statistical analysis, not battlefield deaths and captures.
At my calculated current cost of $17 million for each insurgent KIA, the total cost to clean them out of iraq will be $93,500,000,000,000.
uw
Here is the rest of the story.
The Cost of War
This war has had three phases with many more than three to come.
1. The Conventional war. This is the one where the Iraqi and American armies lined up like Roman Legions and fought it out.
2. Denial. This phase was trumpeted by Special Forces ODAs reporting insurgent activity and the CIA reporting a budding civil war. Everyone else denied those reports were accurate, until the insurgency became like an elephant in the living room - too big to ignore.
3. Counter-insurgency. This phase is being conducted using classic insurgent fighting techniques on one side and classic conventional warfare techniques on the other.
So far the insurgents have been quite successful using low cost techniques to exploit seams in the conventional units' tactics, techniques, and equipment. Meanwhile the conventional guys have been using high cost equipment to dig out and kill some of the insurgents.
The conventional forces are spending $ billions every week. The insurgents are spending a couple of $ million every week. My calculations indicate the cost of one dead insurgent is about $17 million. The cost of one dead conventional soldier is about $15,000.
We may eventually prevail with our conventional war-fighting machine as long as we understand and will pay what it will cost to kill the 150,000,000 Muslim militants on earth - at $17,000,000 per each. Or, maybe we can do it for less.
Fortunately, We did find some cost savings this week in Somalia. There the cost of maintaining, keeping on station (for months), and deploying ships, SOF Forces, USAF Forces, and cruise missiles to kill six insurgents may have only cost $10,000,000 per enemy insurgent KIA.
If we can keep the price that low, the current DOD/Petreaus solution will only cost $1,500,000,000,000,000 ($1.5 quadrillion or $1,500 trillion ) to eliminate the Muslim militant population.
I hope this doesn't affect our social security checks.
unclewest |
