December 6, 2001

By Steven M. Kosiak

The Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (CSBA) estimates that the US military campaign against Taliban and al Qaeda forces in Afghanistan has cost some $1 billion to $2.2 billion through its first two months (October 7 through December 6).¹ Currently, the United States has several dozen warships and several hundred aircraft deployed in support of the operation. In addition, some several thousand Army and Marine Corps troops have been deployed to the region. If operations continue at roughly the same tempo and with roughly the same forces, the Department of Defense (DoD) is likely to incur additional costs of some $600 million to $1.2 billion a month for the duration of the operation. This estimate is roughly consistent with DoD's estimate that it will need about $3.8 billion to pay for the first three months of the war in Afghanistan.²

Estimating the costs of military operations is an inherently difficult and uncertain task. It is made even more difficult in this case because the operation is ongoing and because many details about the operation have not yet been released by DoD. Thus, this should be viewed as only a preliminary rough estimate of the costs of Operation Enduring Freedom.

In addition to these costs, the US military has also incurred increased costs related to Operation Noble Eagle. This operation is focused on enhancing US homeland defense capabilities. Among other things, most of the 57,000 reserve personnel activated since the terrorist attacks of September 11th are apparently being used to support this operation. This analysis does not attempt to estimate the costs of this operation. However, a ballpark estimate of the cost of activating these troops would be about $200 million a month.

Basis for Estimate
In estimating the cost of Operation Enduring Freedom, CSBA used two methodologies. The first is a top-down approach based on US experience during the 1991 Gulf War (Operation Desert Storm) and the 1999 War in Kosovo (Operation Allied Force). The second relies on a bottom-up methodology and defines costs more narrowly.

Top-Down Cost Estimate: During Operation Desert Storm, U.S. Air Force aircraft flew about 35,000 strike sorties (i.e., round-trip missions by individual strike aircraft) and incurred incremental costs (i.e., costs above and beyond those incurred as part of normal peacetime operations) of $15 billion.³ By comparison, Operation Enduring Freedom has so far involved a total of some 4,700 strike sorties.⁴ Assuming costs are relatively closely (if not always directly) related to the number of strike sorties flown, this would imply costs to date of about $2 billion for US aircraft operations in Operation Enduring Freedom.⁵

In addition, Navy ships have launched some 100 Tomahawk land-attack cruise missiles, the Army has deployed some 1,000 troops in Uzbekistan in support of the operation, as well as a small number of SOF troops in Afghanistan, and the Marine Corps has deployed at least 1,300 troops to a base near the Taliban stronghold of Kandahar. At about $1 million apiece, the use of the Tomahawk missiles would add about $100 million to the cost of the operation. A reasonable estimate of the cost of deploying the ground troops in Uzbekistan and Afghanistan (based on the cost of past and ongoing peacekeeping operations) would be roughly $100 million. Altogether, this top-down methodology would imply total incremental costs for the first two months of Operation Enduring Freedom of some $2.2 billion.

Another top-down approach would be to estimate the costs of Operation Enduring Freedom by extrapolating from the costs incurred during Operation Allied Force. The total incremental costs of this military campaign were about $3 billion. This war and these costs were dominated by the Air Force and air operations, but this figure also includes costs incurred by naval forces (e.g., for carrier-based aviation and Tomahawk cruise missiles) and Army units deployed to the region. US land and carrier-based air aircraft flew a total of some 8,500 strike sorties during this conflict. Assuming the total costs of the war in Kosovo are relatively closely related to the number of strike sorties flown, this would imply costs of about $1.7 billion for the ongoing campaign in Afghanistan.⁶

Bottom-Up Cost Estimate: The second approach used to estimate the incremental costs of Operation Enduring Freedom relies on a bottom-up methodology and defines those costs more narrowly. As noted earlier, through the first two months of the war, US aircraft have apparently flown some 4,700 strike missions. This apparently includes about 500 bomber and 4,200 fighter-bomber sorties. Many other sorties have presumably been flown by various support aircraft, including, for example, reconnaissance aircraft, tankers and electronic warfare aircraft.⁷ Modern combat aircraft are very expensive to operate and support. The Navy's carrier-based F/A-18 fighter-bomber, for example, costs some $5,000 an hour to fly. Moreover, the distances that US aircraft must travel in this conflict are enormous. For example, it is some 700 miles from the Arabian Sea, where US aircraft carriers are deployed, to Kabul, and some 2,500 miles from Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean, where US bombers are deployed, to Kabul. Given the high hourly operations and support costs of US military aircraft, and the great distances involved, a reasonable estimate of the cost of US air operations in and around Afghanistan, through the first two months, might be $300 million, exclusive of munitions costs.

The cost of the air-delivered munitions used during the first two days of the campaign may have added another $500 million to the cost of the operation. As indicated in the attached table, some precision-guided munitions are quite expensive. In addition, as noted in the previous section of this analysis, the Navy's expenditure of Tomahawk cruise missiles and the deployment of ground troops to the region have probably each added another $100 million to the cost of the operation. Altogether, this second approach yields a cost estimate for the first two months of Operation Enduring Freedom of some $1 billion.

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For more information, contact Steven Kosiak at 202-331-7990.

The Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (CSBA) is an independent policy research institute established to promote innovative thinking about defense planning and investment strategies for the 21st century. Our web site is at http://www.csbaonline.org.

1. Unless otherwise noted, all costs in this analysis are expressed in fiscal year (FY) 2002 dollars.

2. James Dao, "US Is Expecting To Spend $1 Billion A Month On War," New York Times, November 12, 2001, p. 1.

3. The Air Force was reimbursed for only about $13 billion of these costs. The total incremental cost of the Gulf War, for all Services, was about $61 billion in 1991 dollars, or about $79 billion in FY 2002 dollars.

4. CSBA estimate.

5. One difference between Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Desert Storm, which could affect the accuracy of this methodology, is that, while most of the strike sorties carried out during Desert Storm were flown by Air Force aircraft, most of those flown in the current operation have been flown by Navy aircraft.

6. This top-down approach differs from the previous methodology in that it assumes that the number of strike sorties flown represents a reasonable proxy for estimating the total cost of all (ground, air and naval) operations during the conflict, while the first methodology uses it only as a proxy for estimating the total cost of air operations.

7. During the Gulf War, US aircraft flew about 1.3 support sorties for every strike sortie. During the war in Kosovo, the ratio was about 1.7.