The United States, a world superpower that represents 37 percent of all global military spending, can't even defeat an organization with a few dozens of thousands of fighters, armed predominantly with light equipment.
The US Department of Defense revealed that the anti-ISIL military operation cost $3.5 billion over the period of one year, with the airstrike campaign representing 75 percent of all total expenses. Over $10 million is spent every day, of which half is devoted to the cost of flights only. To hit a single ISIL target it costs $300,000 and to kill a single enemy soldier it costs $175,000, Le Huffington Post said.
The problem for the US military is that regardless of how many targets their airstrikes destroy or terrorists they kill, ISIL keeps increasing its fighters through effective recruitment. In fact, military experts believe that right now ISIL has more active fighters in service than last August, when the anti-ISIL campaign started.
"I don't believe there's any one strategy that we are going to apply that is immediately going to change this. It's going to take a long-term approach," Gen. Votel said.
Now the US military command is reportedly considering to send US ground troops to Iraq with local security forces if no progress made in the anti-ISIL campaign in the next few months.
