Cost of War Revisisted...

If you take a step back from the human cost of war and look at it is stark financial terms, you can see an interesting picture emerging about why the US is not only loosing the war in Iraq, but loosing it's empire too. Take the example of vehicles - tanks, jeeps, APCs and shit. This is what they cost:

$550 million is being spent to replace lost vehicles and equipment.
$5 billion is being spent on vehicle and equipment maintenance in Iraq/Afganistan.
$6 billion is being spent on repairs (at all levels, from the unit to depot, in addition to the above.)
---
11.5 Billion total.

So take the other side's use of weapons:

RPG - $20 each (Rocket Propelled Grenade, not great against newer tanks but stragegies such as hitting weak spots or firing multiple RPGs at the same point do work. Cost of anti-RPG system? £300,000 PER VEHICLE!).


Van full of explosives - $3,615 ("..can easily transport the equivalent of several conventional 1,000-pound bombs to the doorstep of a prime target..")

IED - $600 (Improvised Explosive Device - a remote controlled bomb that accounts for most of the troops killed in combat. Cost of the anti-IED projects? "Joint IED Defeat Organization is getting a sharply increased $3.3 billion this year to foil the often rudimentary weapons..."


That is why the ticker at CostofWar.com moves so fast...($274,691,329,457 at the time of writing)