September 15, 2021
The Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs, an interdisciplinary research center at Brown University published a thorough investigative report under the Costs of War Project. The report says that US spending since the start of the war in Afghanistan totals over $14 trillion, at least one-third of the total going to military contractors.
According to the report, around one-quarter to one-third of all Pentagon contracts in recent years has gone to just five major corporations: Lockheed Martin, Boeing, General Dynamics, Raytheon, and Northrop Grumman. The $75 billion in Pentagon contracts received by Lockheed Martin in fiscal year 2020 is well over one and one-half times the entire budget for the State Department and Agency for International Development for that year, which totaled $44 billion. Weapon makers have spent $2.5 billion over the past two decades on lobbying, employing, over 700 lobbyists per year over the past five years. That is more than one for every member of Congress.
Moreover, the report illustrates numerous examples of fraud, waste, and abuse during the Afghan reconstruction process. Since armed private security contractors were usually involved in activities such as guarding embassies, serving as bodyguards, protecting oil pipelines and other infrastructure, and training, transparency and accountability was compromised. The lack of transparency, with respect to the activities of private contractors, has been compounded by the Pentagon’s 2018 decision to stop reporting on the numbers of U.S. troops engaged in combat overseas.
Read Full Report at: https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/papers/2021/ProfitsOfWar
