Does U.S. await yet another expensive war?

When Mr. George Bush decided to dispatch more American troops to Iraq to wage the war, he did not foresee the economic challenges that lay ahead, and the criticisms followed. Today, many eyes are set on President Barrack Obama, as he mulls over the future of the Afghanistan war. In this beleaguered economy, will US be able to manage another expensive war?

Very recently, Obama’s top commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal requested for 40000 more troops as the existing 68000 troops in addition to NATO’s 38000 troops, were not enough to fight the Taliban. While Mr. Obama has been busy with meeting his advisors and seems in no hurry to call the shots on this one, the situation in the war zone is not a pleasant one. According to several reports in the American media, the military operations in the third world country are not going too well. With the war starting to quiver, McChrystal aims at redefining the strategy from hunting down Taliban to protecting the civilians, which he believes will put the American military in a better position.

Another factor to think about is that the money involved is huge. Amy Belasco, a US Defense Policy and Budget specialist, said in her total report - The Cost of Iraq, Afghanistan, and Other Global War on Terror Operations Since 9/11- that a total of $849 billion has been spent on the military operations post 9/11 terror attacks.

From the total budget, $189 billion were appropriated for the Afghanistan war. However, the latest estimate in a newspaper report said that $288 billion have been spent on the operation to date, according to a newspaper report. The numbers involved here are big, a startling especially because of tough the economic situation that U.S. is in right now – with little to no signs of improvement.

The major concern for America at this point should be the economic input and the political outcome. Once the defense budget is exhausted, more funds will be directed from the Federal Reserve to the operation. And if they do not survive this war the economic loss would be in billions – the amount that can possibly employ billions of Americans. In a nutshell, the scenario would be similar to that of the Iraq war – the one that left a bad impact on everybody's mind. The extravagant expenditure on the war in the Bush years also led to an incredible increase in the US government’s debt - the money that was borrowed from Saudi Arabia, Japan and China.

An important step for Obama in this precarious scenario would be to think economically as well as politically, unlike Bush who thought politically and that reflected in most of his decisions, the war in Iraq being the most prominent example.