$1 trillion mark almost reached

Obama has just announced he will send about 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan, and he's hoping that NATO will send another 10,000 or so, which would make 40,000. That will cost about $1 million extra per year per extra soldier, so about $30 BILLION per year extra for the US alone.

This article summarizes concisely the costs:

How much will the troop escalation in Afghanistan cost you?

A pretty penny. President Obama said Tuesday night it would cost $30 billion this fiscal year — or about $1 million per soldier — to send 30,000 additional troops there. That’s a low estimate, budget experts say, but let’s run with it for the moment. An extra $30 billion in Afghanistan means that in 2010 alone, US military spending in Afghanistan will equal nearly half of total spending on the war since 2001, according to Travis Sharp, military policy analyst with the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation in Washington. The troop increase will cost $2.5 billion per month, $82 million per day, $3.4 million per hour, $57,000 per minute, and $951 per second.

It’s a direct tax on Americans: about $195 for each taxpayer next year.

But that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Even after wars wind down, charges continue to accrue.

“The total cost of [the escalation in] Afghanistan will be at least twice the cost and perhaps three times the cost of the estimate, says Linda Bilmes, a budget and public-finance expert at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. When she counts replacement of worn-out military equipment, disability payments to soldiers, Veterans Administration medical care, and the interest charges to finance the war, the tab doubles. When she adds indirect costs to the economy — say, the lost wages of a parent who quits his job to care for a son wounded in combat — it triples.

Nato Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen has welcomed Barack Obama's commitment to send 30,000 extra US troops to Afghanistan. Rasmussen said that he thought it was the right decision for both Afghanistan and Nato, and said he was confident allies would contribute another 5,000 forces.

This map shows where the troops are in Afghanistan.

The costs of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars total about $1 trillion so far.

Obama's proposal would place more than 200,000 troops altogether in Afghanistan and Iraq. If the troop level across both nations averages 75,000 through the next decade, the operations will cost an additional $867 billion -- more than the $848 billion health-care legislation the Senate is considering.

So that would make it to a cumulative total of about $2 trillion total by 2019.

See also this article on costs and Congressional factions.

The Washington Post thought Obama's decision was "both correct and courageous"; the NYT said "we are sure that continuing President Bush’s strategy of fighting on the cheap (in January 2008, the start of Mr. Bush’s last year in office and more than six years after the war began, there were only 27,000 American troops in Afghanistan) is a guarantee of defeat", therefore "Obama showed considerable political courage" in his speech.
The WSJ also backed the decision, although it was concerned with the clear beginning of withdrawal date (July 2011): "the focus on withdrawal so soon after escalation sends a message of doubt to the very Afghans the surge is supposed to reassure, while encouraging the Taliban to wait us out." The WSJ also has concerns over Obama's "war diffidence"--that's what we're supposed to think a 30,000 surge is about (how many more troops would the WSJ need for Obama not to be diffident?).
The LA Times said they were worried about money and success, not about the morality of occupation: they have "grave misgivings about the cost and likelihood of success".

But Obama's approval ratings on Afghanistan are falling. Gallup has a number of questions that illustrate this well. They summarize: "The decline in Obama's approval rating on Afghanistan is evident among all party groups, with double-digit decreases since September among Republicans (17 points), independents (16 points), and Democrats (10 points)."

A Pew survey to be released soon will show public sentiment against intervention abroad at its highest level since such sentiment began being tested in 1964.

But Obama doesn't care about popular opinion; in fact he said it himself yesterday: ""I am painfully clear that this is politically unpopular," Obama told a small group of columnists. "Not only is this not popular, but it's least popular in my own party. But that's not how I make decisions." "

There is a good chart here tracing the increase in US troops in Afghanistan over time.

Obama's plan was denounced by liberals as costing too much or not warranted and by Republicans because it included references to an exit strategy.