Let Europe Fight the Small Wars So America Can Stop the Big Wars
The U.S.-European alliance would benefit from specialization.
Sean Lavelle
July 6, 2016
America routinely conducts military operations in no fewer than seven countries around the world. These interventions are what military theorists might call “low-intensity conflicts.” They are primarily aimed at tamping down the probabilities that radical groups will successfully attack the U.S. homeland. The budget for these interventions reached a peak of $187 billion, in 2008, and the White House has requested $50.9 billion for 2016.
The New York Times once estimated the physical, economic and human costs incurred in the September 11, 2001 attacks to be approximately $178 billion. And statisticians have estimated that there was, at most, only a 35 percent chance of 9/11 happening in the last forty years, which comes out to an annual chance of about 1.1 percent. America is currently spending 28 percent of the cost of a hypothetical catastrophe to prevent it ($50.9 billion for overseas contingency operations in 2016, divided by the $178 billion cost of a similar attack). Since that catastrophe only has a 1.1 percent chance of occurring, it seems America is overspending. Here is a calculator that allows you to play with the numbers for yourself.
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