War is very far away for us. Although we can always “experience” war in film and television dramas or games, our understanding of war is still too one-sided. After all, war is nothing but a tool and means of political intentions. War requires It takes a lot of manpower, material and financial resources to support it. In addition to soldiers and weapons, how much does a modern war cost? Most people may not be able to give an accurate answer to this topic, so today I will bring Let us know how expensive war is.
For modern warfare, the price is sky-high. For example, from the perspective of the recent Russian-Ukrainian war that has attracted worldwide attention, according to Ukrainian estimates, the material losses to Russia caused by the destruction of tanks, planes and weapons by the Ukrainian side in the first two days of the war amounted to about 5 billion US dollars. What is this concept? $5 billion can build at least 2 aircraft carriers, or the GDP of a medium-sized country for a year. If you look at it this way, you can understand how terrifying modern warfare is.
More importantly, not only does military hardware cost money, but the value of soldiers is also difficult to measure by currency. However, the dead and wounded officers and soldiers always have to be paid for or treated in money, and this kind of expenditure is not a small number. In addition, Russia’s war was sanctioned by the Western world, and the economic losses in this era are even more immeasurable.
In fact, Russia has lost a lot of human and financial resources in these years of war. For example, the number of soldiers lost by Russia in the first Chechen war exceeded 5,000, and the death toll of the second Chechen war was more than 8,000. The incalculable number of vehicles and tanks of the heavily armored troops are all worth the money.
The U.S. spending in the war is even more staggering. In the past 20 years, the U.S. has spent a total of $8 trillion in military spending, and the number of casualties among soldiers has reached 930,000.
It is worth noting that the US military has spent 2 trillion US dollars in Afghanistan in the past few years, which is something that any medium-sized country can never even imagine.
Second was the period of World War II, from the declaration of war by the United States on December 8, 1941, to the surrender of Japan on September 2, 1945, although it lasted less than four years. However, you must know that this short four-year period is the most expensive time in the history of the United States. It is said that the cost of the war during World War II, if converted into today’s US dollars, is probably more than 4 trillion US dollars.
In the last year of World War II, U.S. defense spending was 40 percent of GDP. This ratio is unimaginable if it is put into the present. During this period, the U.S. government adopted some new methods to raise the necessary funds to successfully achieve its goals. After the end of World War II, many countries reflected on it and began to reconsider their development paths. Despite the significance and cost of World War II, these wars were still insignificant relative to the size and economic impact of the Second World War, after all, the United States became the center of the world and has remained to today.
The U.S. was briefly involved in World War I, but spent only $334 billion attacking the enemy at the time. These include substantial military and civilian spending. In World War II, that figure rose to $4.1 trillion. It can be seen that in this process, the cost of war has also increased, especially in the two years before the end of World War II and three years after the war.
It is worth noting that the difference in spending here is partly because the US military actually fought in World War I for only one year, but during the last four years of World War II, the US actively engaged in the war. With the continuous advancement of technology, the cost of war has actually been greatly reduced after 55 years. After all, the United States only spent 8 trillion US dollars between 2001 and 2020. But don’t think that 8 trillion is trivial for the United States. You must know that this money was borne by 150 million taxpayers, and at the time, the United States was still burdened with a foreign debt of 2.1 trillion US dollars, and there were about 1 trillion in subsidies for war veterans and care costs. The cost of war is unimaginable, and war will bring huge harm to civilians on both sides of the war, so we must cherish this hard-won peace.