alt Hacker NewsWouldn't some of these costs be present either way? Without a war US would still have aircraft carriers, they would just be floating somewhere else.
On the other side, it seems like this is not tracking interceptor costs (presumably due to it being classified), which have certainly been used extensively and are extremely expensive. For that matter i doubt we have a very clear picture of how much ordinance has been used in general.
[To be clear, im not doubting war is very expensive]
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> Wouldn't some of these costs be present either way?
This is a fair way to account for the cost, because the assets were procured and personnel hired years ago for just this purpose.
Put another way: we would not need this fleet at all if we did not expect to use it in a manner like this. (For example, Spain did not choose to have this capability and so has not borne a cost of maintaining this option for the preceding decades.) Through that lens, the true cost of this war would involve counting back to before this round of hostilities began.
It's only fair to count _at least_ the "time on task" for all the assets.
Yes, the actual accounting is quite poor and makes bad assumptions. Don't use this info for anything important or serious.
Right, consider the personnel costs that are displayed here. They were already getting paid this past weekend either way (admittedly the military may have had to hire some last minute contractors to help with the operation).
There's someone quoted here who estimated UAE by itself cost in fighting off the Shahed drones at $23-28 per $1 spent on Shahed drone at $55000 (they know how many got through and the claimed success rate and the methods they are using to defend UAE) https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/shahed-drones-iran-us...
I think that's true, but I like that this site includes a "ESTIMATED MUNITIONS & EQUIPMENT COSTS" section that shows the value of actual, expended munitions which are all one-time costs directly resulting from the war.
Munitions, fuel, and combat pay are additional in combat. Also maintenance. Some costs are there anyway, sure. But war is far more expensive than peace.
Also, the taking the production/purchasing cost of some F15s that were 25 - 35 years old doesn't make a whole lot of sense, or does it?
Maybe, its opaque how its calculated.
But you are keeping people on high alert, refueling further away, etc...
it's also doesn't take into consideration the revenue opportunities, like USA-branded apparel, FanDuel parlay wagers, and I assume that Epic Fury is a summer Marvel franchise, or Wrestling PPV?
Sure but having a bunch of resources for "defence" is very different from having a bunch of resources for "attack" in most people's mind I imagine.
Yes but right now it’s doing this war. It can’t be anywhere else, so the costs are for this deployment specifically.
Iran probably wouldn't have blown up the $300m radar installation if we hadn't randomly attacked them.
A carrier operating at sea on the other side of the world is a ton more expensive than a carrier in port at home. The Ford in particular would probably be in port now if not for these back-to-back expensive adventures, they’ve been deployed for a remarkably long time now.
(As for whether this reflects only those added costs, I don’t know)