The cost of keeping each American soldier in Afghanistan is set to nearly double to 2.1 million, at the same time that crucial sectors of the US military are underfunded, according to a new analysis of the Pentagon’s budget.
US military planners are scrambling to explain why the cost has ballooned to $2.1 million, after holding steady at $1.3 million annually for the past five years.
The budget for Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO) acknowledges
a 39 percent reduction in US forces in Afghanistan, yet total
expenditures for the operation drops by only 10 percent.
Pentagon officials blame the additional cost on shutting down
bases and shipping equipment and personnel back home as forces
evacuate Afghanistan, but not everybody agrees with this
explanation as to why the cost per soldier has dramatically
increased.
“One would also expect to have observed a similar increase in
costs when these forces were initially deployed to
Afghanistan,” said Todd Harrison, a researcher with the
Center for Strategic and Budgetary Analysis.
“It was a bit of a shocker to me,” Harrison told Defense
One, a military newsletter.
During the surge years of 2010 and 2011, when additional troops
and equipment were shipped into Afghanistan, military bases were
built or expanded, and new equipment was purchased, there was no
visible increase in expenditures, he explained in his report,
titled: “Chaos and Uncertainty.”
“These initial deployment costs could in theory be greater
than redeployment costs, especially given that large amounts of
equipment are not being returned to the United States during the
drawdown currently underway,” Harrison reasoned in the
report.
Indeed, much of the military hardware in Afghanistan is being
turned into scrap metal as the 12-year military operation enters
its planned last phase.
It was reported in June that US officials in Afghanistan
are engaged in a “massive disposal effort, which US military
officials call unprecedented that entails the United States
scrapping more than $7 billion worth of equipment…because it is
no longer needed or would be too costly to ship back home.”
The US military has already destroyed more than 77,000 metric
tons of military equipment.
The budget analyst said costs associated with intelligence,
surveillance and reconnaissance, as well as the support structure
for troops on the ground remains “are not likely to
decline,” despite a drop in the number of military personnel
stationed in the Central Asian hotspot.
Harrison also notes the cost of training and equipping Afghan
security forces – who will be required to fill the security void
when US forces complete their exit to the tune of $7.7 billion –
as yet another reason for the rising cost of the Afghan war.
Included in the higher cost per service member is the cost of
private contractors used to perform military functions previously
performed by military personnel, such as “laundry, food
service, maintenance, and some security functions.”
All of these factors have contributed to make the Afghan war
exceedingly expensive for the US taxpayer.
To spend or not to spend
Ironically, as the price tag associated with fielding US soldiers
in Afghanistan goes through the roof, US military spending is
suffering major setbacks on other fronts.
At an annual conference for the Association of the US Army held
this week, military leaders spoke out on spending cuts that are
having a negative impact on the armed forces.
Army Chief of Staff Gen. Ray Odierno revealed that just two Army brigades are
combat-ready since the cuts forced the Pentagon to cancel six
months of military training.
“And there's going to come a time when we just simply don't
have enough money to provide what I believe to be the right
amount of ground forces to [carry out]... contingency
operations,” Odierno told reporters.
A brigade is comprised of between 3,200 and 5,000 soldiers.
"The worst-case scenario is you ask me to deploy thousands of
soldiers somewhere and we have not properly trained them to go
because we simply don't have the dollars and money because of the
way sequestration is laid out," Odierno added, referring to
automatic budget cuts.
Harrison’s report, meanwhile, compares the current military
drawdown with the Vietnam era, suggesting expenditures “could
fall to roughly $62 billion, the level reached at the end of the
1980s.” The author goes on to warn that a drop in military
funding could result in major programs being canceled or delayed,
“such as the Joint Strike Fighter, the next-generation bomber,
and the expanded payload module for Virginia class
submarines.”
Such a turn of events for the US military, which at the present
time seems unfathomable considering the heady levels of spending,
as well as the power that defense industry lobbyists now enjoy in
Congress, would “adversely affect the future capability of US
forces, particularly in a more contested environment than that
experienced in either Iraq or Afghanistan.”
The next government sequester is set to take place in January
2014, which could see the Defense Department’s budget slashed by
$21 billion.