Iraq Victory Worth the Cost?

It’s five years since the U.S. coalition began military action to remove Iraq’s Saddam Hussein from power. “Victory” in that action meant turning Iraq over to a civilian, post-Saddam government capable of managing its own affairs. We are making progress, but have yet to win. For the American people, that’s a problem. Considering that the British defeat at Yorktown effectively settled in 1781 a Revolutionary War that officially began with our Declaration of Independence in 1776, no American war except Vietnam—a U.S. defeat—has lasted beyond 5.25 years.

There are two big reasons why the Iraq war’s length is less significant than was the case for past wars. First, we are taking relatively few casualties, and are doing so with an all-volunteer military. Second, the war represents a relatively small share of our total national product.

1. Relatively few casualties.

The total number of American dead in Iraq is comparable to those lost in our smaller wars—the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, and the Spanish-American War [see chart]. Yet in the Revolutionary War, 1 of every 610 Americans lost his life, 1 of every 3,320 in the War of 1812, and one of every 30,650 in the Spanish-American War. In Iraq, our professionals who died represent only 1 in every 76,100 Americans.

2. Relatively small share of GDP.

Amity Shlaes, writing in Bloomberg, has the figures: “Back in 1986, the year before Ronald Reagan threw out his ‘tear down this wall' challenge to Mikhail Gorbachev, defense spending was 6.2% of the U.S. economy. In 1968, the year of the Tet Offensive in Vietnam, it was 9.5%. In 2005, 2006, and 2007, defense spending was about 4% of GDP—as low as during the early 1990s, when the U.S. was enjoying the ‘peace dividend’ after the Soviet Union's collapse.”

If we are able to firm up a counter-insurgency victory over al-Qaeda in Iraq—after having rid the world of a dangerous, oil-rich Saddam Hussein—and if we are also able to leave in place a Shia-led Iraqi government that is independent of Iran, the U.S. and the West will indeed have secured a victory well worth its cost.