| Included component | Cutoff | Billions, 2025 dollars |
|---|
| Selected Israel, Egypt and Jordan aid | 1951–2025 | $564.28 |
| Afghanistan and Iraq/Syria military obligations | FY2001–FY2024 | $2,401.88 |
| Iran estimated military costs | October 16, 2026 | $45.76 |
| Combined selected costs | Mixed cutoffs above | $3,011.92 |
| Additional CENTCOM costs outside included wars | Not reconciled | Unknown — not zero |
","layout":"text"},{"role":"body","format":"markdown","text":"The combined line is the sum of the three components, not an additional category. The total is calculated from unrounded values; displayed components can differ slightly because of rounding. Readers can expand **Show the numbers** to see each annual cumulative observation.\n\n### Where CENTCOM fits into the cumulative total\n\nThe military lines already cover operations conducted under CENTCOM, including Iraq/Syria and Afghanistan-related missions. **A separate CENTCOM budget is not automatically an additional charge.** The amount of additional CENTCOM spending outside the included records remains unknown; the chart therefore remains a selected-cost subtotal, not a complete CENTCOM-inclusive total.\n\nFor FY2024, the Section 1090 report records **$6.032 billion** in Iraq/Syria obligations, while the budget overview lists **$5.4 billion** for Operation Inherent Resolve in its actuals column. Both concern the same operation, but the figures do not reconcile. The Section 1090 report also includes **$13.069 billion** for Afghanistan-related Operation Enduring Sentinel support. Subtracting these obligations from the overview’s **$20.0 billion** CENTCOM grouping would produce a residual without proving that it represents distinct additional costs. [Sources: Section 1090 table and footnotes](https://comptroller.war.gov/Portals/45/documents/Section1090Reports/Estimated_Cost_to_Each_US_Taxpayer_of_Each_Wars_in_Afghanistan_Iraq_and_Syria_and_Ukraine_dated_February_2025.pdf) and [budget overview, Figure 2.4](https://comptroller.war.gov/Portals/45/Documents/defbudget/FY2026/FY2026_Budget_Request_Overview_Book.pdf).\n\nA valid expanded total requires annual CENTCOM obligations with matching account and operation coverage, less the amounts already included in the war and aid series. GAO has documented that CENTCOM headquarters costs have themselves relied on contingency funding, underscoring why even headquarters spending cannot simply be assumed separate. [Source: GAO’s CENTCOM funding review](https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-14-440).\n\n### What the search for a CENTCOM range established\n\nGAO publishes annual CENTCOM and component-headquarters operating obligations for FY2008–FY2013, separating regular-budget funding from contingency funding. That is useful evidence for a limited headquarters account, but not a low–high estimate of the entire command’s additional costs. Treating the two funding categories as competing estimates would confuse different categories with uncertainty. [Source: GAO-14-440, Appendix II, Tables 6–7](https://www.gao.gov/assets/gao-14-440.pdf).\n\nCRS explains that most defense spending is not routinely broken down by location, and regional basing costs depend on what personnel, equipment and deployments are included. This review has not established matching annual records and an overlap adjustment sufficient to derive a comprehensive additional-CENTCOM range. **Neither a numerical upper bound nor a positive additional lower bound is established here.** Unknown is not zero. Adding a guessed band to the top chart would imply evidence that the available records do not supply. [Source: CRS, overseas basing costs, pages 20–21](https://www.everycrsreport.com/reports/R48123.html).\n\n### How the calculation avoids overlap\n\nFor 1951–2000, the aid component uses the country-series obligations; no war-cost series is added for those years. From 2001 onward, it uses the funding-account data and excludes funds attributed to the Defense Department and the Army, Navy and Air Force. That removes about **$2.002 billion in 2025 dollars** from the three-country aid series. This deliberately broad exclusion prevents potentially overlapping defense-account assistance from being added to Pentagon war costs. It is not a finding that every excluded dollar was duplicated.\n\nThe remaining aid is funded outside those defense agencies. Funding-account totals reconcile to the country totals for each of the three recipients in every year from 2001 through 2025. A record is counted as an obligation once; disbursements, budget requests and arms-sale announcements are not added to it. [Sources: country data](https://foreignassistance.gov/static/us_foreign_aid_country.csv) and [funding-account data](https://foreignassistance.gov/static/us_foreign_aid_funding.csv).\n\nThe military component uses only the two annual Pentagon columns shown in the next war chart. It excludes Ukraine. The broader Costs of War lifetime estimates, the separate 2023–2025 regional estimate and the CRS historical aid totals are not added to this cumulative line. Their coverage overlaps other records or cannot be reconciled into this annual calculation.\n\n### The Iran addition is an estimate, not all money already paid\n\nStars and Stripes reported a **$47.1 billion** Pentagon estimate through October 16, 2026. It includes approximately $29 billion for munitions replacement and $6.1 billion for replacement equipment, which the report described as unfunded, alongside roughly $11.9 billion in incurred costs. Rounded parts do not exactly equal the headline total, so the calculation uses the reported total once. [Source: Stars and Stripes, October 28](https://www.stripes.com/theaters/middle_east/2026-10-28/pentagon-estimate-iran-war-cost-47b-23289282.html).\n\nWe convert that $47.1 billion using the 2026-to-2025 factor in the government aid download, approximately **0.971511**, giving **$45.758 billion in 2025 dollars**. The 2026 factor is provisional, not final full-year inflation. The estimate has a different accounting status from the historical obligations, which is why its contribution is displayed separately as well as in the combined line.\n\nThe chart does not add a new funding request, replacement-cost components or earlier Iran estimates on top of the $47.1 billion. It also does not estimate omitted base-repair costs. Annual data for Korea, Vietnam and the Gulf War have not been verified for this calculation, so their historical totals remain outside this line. Recent reporting gaps, missing Egypt observations, 2025 Afghanistan/Iraq/Syria costs and 2026 aid also remain outside it. The result is a transparent subtotal of selected records, not a claimed comprehensive upper or lower estimate.\n\n## Scope of this accounting\n\nThe United States has committed hundreds of billions of dollars to Israel and its Arab peace partners, while the broader costs of American wars reach into the trillions. But a single price tag for “75 years of wars for Israel” would confuse who received the money, why it was approved and when the bill comes due.\n\nA useful accounting separates three questions: how much Washington supplied directly to Israel; how much it provided to countries whose peace and cooperation help sustain regional security; and how much American military campaigns cost. Neoconservative advocacy belongs in the political history of those campaigns. It is not a federal spending category.\n\nThis review covers the roughly 75-year period from 1951 to 2026, using the available historical series. Some series start in 1946; the Korean War begins in 1950. Those exceptions are labeled. The charts preserve each source’s dollar basis and cutoff rather than inventing a uniform, up-to-the-minute total.\n\n## CENTCOM: regional operations are part of the bill\n\nCENTCOM means U.S. Central Command. The Pentagon’s FY2026 budget overview reports **$20.0 billion for FY2024 actuals, $16.7 billion enacted for FY2025 and $15.3 billion requested for FY2026** in its USCENTCOM operations grouping. These are different accounting stages, not three years of verified cash payments. [Source: Pentagon budget overview, Figure 2.4, pages 2-12–2-13](https://comptroller.war.gov/Portals/45/Documents/defbudget/FY2026/FY2026_Budget_Request_Overview_Book.pdf).\n\nThe grouping includes Operation Inherent Resolve and other theater requirements. Its footnote includes some missions outside CENTCOM, including the Horn of Africa and Guantanamo. The stated total excludes international border-security and coalition-support funding. It is not a complete inventory of the military’s regional costs or solely spending to defend Israel.\n\n**CENTCOM operations grouping in constant 2025 dollars**\n\nPer-taxpayer equivalent using a fixed 216,559,400 taxpayer denominator (2024): FY2024 actuals: Inherent Resolve $26, Other theater and related missions $69 (total $95); FY2025 enacted: Inherent Resolve $25, Other theater and related missions $52 (total $77); FY2026 request: Inherent Resolve $20, Other theater and related missions $48 (total $69). Same dollar basis as this chart; rounded; not an individual tax bill. Billions of 2025 dollars. FY2024 actuals, FY2025 enacted budget and FY2026 request are distinct accounting stages. Includes some missions outside CENTCOM; not a comprehensive regional spending ledger. FY2026 inflation factor is provisional. Do not add these bars to the cumulative war-cost chart.","textStyle":"body","layout":"text"},{"role":"htmltable","html":"