No Business Like War Business: US Spending on Mideast Conflict Tops $22 Billion in One Year
© AP Photo / Ted Shaffrey
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The Biden administration began the emergency supply of weapons and ammunition to Tel Aviv immediately after the start of the Israel-Hamas War a year ago, further ramping up its involvement in the conflict by deploying carrier battlegroups, aircraft squadrons, air defenses and boots on the ground at bases across the Middle East.
The United States has spent $22.76 billion on the conflict in the Middle East between last October and now, $17.9 billion of this for security assistance to Israel, and $4.86 billion on beefed up US deployments throughout the region, including for the flagging campaign against the Houthis, a new report by Brown University’s Cost of War project has revealed.
The university says its estimates – accounting for the period from October 7, 2023 through September 30, 2024, are “conservative,” and do “not include any other economic costs” associated with the crisis, such as heightened costs to global shipping resulting from the Houthis’ partial blockade of the Red Sea to Israel-linked maritime traffic.
The report says US weapons deliveries to Israel have included some 57,000 artillery shells, 36,000 rounds of ammunition for cannons, 20,000 M4A1 rifles, nearly 14,000 anti-tank missiles (though Israel’s Hamas, Hezbollah and Houthi adversaries possess no tanks), and 8,700 MK 82 500 pound bombs. Other assistance included $4 billion to replenish Israel’s Iron Dome and David’s Sling air and missile defense systems, $1.2 billion for the Iron Beam laser air defense system, still in development, and $4.4 billion to replenish US armories emptied by the emergency deliveries to Tel Aviv.
US aid also included 4,127,000 kg of JP-8 jet fuel, 14,100 MK 84 unguided 2,000 bombs, 3,000 Joint Direct Attack Munition dumb-to-smart bomb conversion kits, 3,000 Hellfire missiles, 2,600 250-pound GBU-39 Small Diameter Bombs, 1,800 M141 bunker buster bombs, 3,500 night vision devices, 200 Switchblade drones, 100+ Skydio X drones, and 75 Joint Light Tactical Vehicles.
Brown’s report noted that the $17.9 billion in direct arms aid to Israel over the past year is “substantially more than in any other year since the US began granting military aid” to the country in 1959. Before 2023-2024, an average year’s-worth of US assistance amounted to approximately $3.3 billion, with total aid between 1946 and early 2024 topping $300 billion, adjusted for inflation.
US military aid to Israel, 1959-2024.
© Photo : Brown University - Cost of War
The study also broke down US expenditures related to the Pentagon’s beefed up footprint in the Middle East amid the Gaza conflict, including a $2.4 billion supplemental, another $2.4 billion for costs associated with operating carrier strike groups and other missions against the Houthis, and $50-$70 million for additional combat pay.
Billions for Defense But Not a Cent for Charity?
Washington’s largesse fueling the conflict in the Middle East contrasts sharply with its economic neoliberalism-driven penny-pinching on social programs at home, with aid organizations calculating, for example, that it would take about $20 billion to end homelessness in the United States, or about $25 billion to end hunger in the country.
The crisis in the Middle East is just one of three major security emergencies the US has been actively engaged in over the past year, with others including the ongoing NATO-fueled proxy war against Russia in Ukraine, and the spat with Beijing in Asia amid Washington’s efforts to hem China in along its coasts and prevent the peaceful, negotiated reunification of Taiwan with the People’s Republic.
The Kiel Institute for the World Economy estimates that the United States has sent over $82 billion-worth of support to Ukraine over the past two-and-a-half years, including $56.6 billion in military assistance. Former President Donald Trump believes that figure is much higher, estimating that the actual number is closer to $300 billion.
“So, we’re into almost $300 billion for Ukraine, and yet they’re offering people $750 for immediate aid for the worst hurricane than anybody has ever seen,” Trump said in an interview with Fox News on Monday, referring to federal assistance to the victims of Hurricane Helene, which laid a path of flooding and destruction across the US southeast in late September, killing at least 200 people and causing over $38 billion in damage.
