Hegseth’s Blank Check?

Testimony on the Hill this week on the cost of the war in Iran got a bit intense in the questioning of Secretary of War Hegseth by Senator Gary Peters of Michigan. “You’re asking the American people,” the senator barked, “for a blank check because, once again, the Trump administration’s efforts have been an utter and complete failure to win this war to this point. So my question for you, sir, is: How is your strategy different than what we’ve seen in the past?”Good question, by our lights — except the answer is not the one for which Mr. Peters was fishing. To be sure, Mr. Hegseth’s latest estimate of the cost to date of the Iran war, $37.5 billion, is nothing at which to sneeze. He mooted, too, an overall cost for the endeavor of some $100 billion. Yet compared with earlier military operations, the price tag for the conflict against Tehran looks modest, especially when viewed as a proportion of the American economy. Even if the Iran war ends up costing $100 billion, which is not clear at this point, that would amount to but 0.3 percent of the nation’s annual economic output of some $32 trillion. Viewed through this lens, past wars were far more costly. American spending in 1919, the peak year of World War I, amounted to 13.6 percent of GDP, the Congressional Research Service reports. In 1945, the peak year of spending in World War II, our outlays were 35.8 percent of GDP.The Vietnam war, between 1965 and 1975, cost a maximum of 2.3 percent of GDP. That was during 1968, the peak year of the war, per CRS. Defense spending overall during that period peaked at some 9.5 percent of GDP, a reflection of higher expenses during the Cold War. The war to liberate Iraq from Saddam Hussein, between 2003 and 2010, cost in its peak year, 2008, or 1 percent of GDP, the CRS adds. The total cost was $715 billion.That expense was on a par with the Spanish American War between 1898 and 1899. In the latter year, the more costly of the conflict, American expenditure amounted to 1.1 percent of the nation’s GDP, the CRS says. Today’s conflict with the Islamic Republic is, at least so far, likely to rack up a cost comparable to, say, the Persian Gulf War that ended in 1991. That year, the war cost some 0.3 percent of American GDP, the CRS reports.We don’t mean to suggest that the cost of any of these wars is negligible. Plus there is not only the financial cost but the cost in lives. Wars are, moreover, a friend of the state, and we can understand the concerns of principled libertarians. In adjudging the costs of any war, though, it’s important to consider the costs of not standing up for the fight. What we do mean to suggest is that Iran is not out of line with other wars.In light of America’s past track record on war spending, it’s certainly hard to see what basis lawmakers have to accuse the commander in chief of demanding a “blank check” when it comes to Iran. That said, the imbroglio over military expenses underscores the advantages, for Mr. Trump, as these columns have pointed out, were he to have gotten a war declaration from Congress ahead of returning the attacks initiated by the enemy.A proper declaration, after all, would bind both the legislators and the president to the cause of bringing the conflict to victory. A declaration, too, as seen during, say, World War II, would commit the Congress to providing the resources needed to get the job done. That would be a more constructive contribution from the solons than the strategic second-guessing and carping over costs that we now see emanating from Capitol Hill.

Hegseth’s Blank Check?

Hegseth’s Blank Check?

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