Canada's Seven Billion Dollar War

Abstract

In March 2008, parliament voted to extend Canadian military operations in Afghanistan through 2011. By July of that year, roughly 41,000 Canadians will have served in the Afghan theatre of operations, 15,000 more than fought in Korea. Given the seriousness of Canada's commitments, in terms of both blood and treasure, informed discussion of the Afghan war is vital to ensure the public understands the government's aims and motivations, as well as when Canadians can expect to see the forces return home. On these points, there has been significant discussion amongst the public, parliamentarians, and pundits which, while highly partisan, has included substantive reasoned debates. In contrast, there has been little analysis of the financial burden for the government of Canada - and the Canadian armed forces specifically. For a national military only recently emerging from a decade of budget cuts, the financial cost of such a substantial combat mission is significant.There has been little reasoned discussion of the short-term financial implications of the mission to date, and virtually no analysis of its long-term impact on the defence budget. To be fair, estimating the financial burden of an active war effort is made difficult by the ever-changing nature of combat operations, and tracking the finances of the Department of National Defence over time is complex. Even if one focuses on a specific area of defence spending, is extremely difficult for Canadians to know how their defence dollars are being spent because of reporting and tracking systems that are as opaque as they are clear.1Although parliamentary committees and the Manley panel have issued reports on CF operations in Afghanistan, none dealt substantively with the financial implications, while the auditor general has only examined logistics support.2, In the US, on the other hand, the congressional research service, congressional budget office, and government accountability office have produced detailed analyses of the cost of the global war on terror, including estimates for the future costs of operations. In comparison, no Canadian body provided a comparable financial analysis of Canada's current commitment - or the prospective extension - that could have been incorporated into recent debates over extending the Afghan mission. Instead, the public is left with two nongovernmental analyses of past operations and scattered media reports.The financial impact is vital to the debate over the mission itself, as well as future defence planning, and it is not subject to operational security concerns. Unfortunately, the government's reporting does not allow easy assessments of the total costs, future projections, or detailed funding of operations. Thus, it is left to individuals to make their own calculations.This article offers an initial examination of the cost of the Afghan mission focusing on the Department of National Defence, the Canadian forces, and Veterans Affairs Canada. In doing so, it will analyze the cost of operations - as estimated by DND - and provide projections for the remainder of the current mission. It then examines the cost of Canadian forces international operations since 1996 as a share of defence spending, so as to place current spending in Afghanistan in context, and reviews the funding provided by the government for the war. The American system of war funding is then briefly examined to illustrate an alternate system of war funding and suggest some future costs likely to accrue in Canada. Possible future costs associated with equipment replacement and veterans care are described, followed by an overview of some of the potential indirect costs related to the war. The article concludes by examining the probable impact of five- and- ahalf years of combat operations in Afghanistan on the forces.HOW DO WE KNOW WHAT THE MISSION IS COSTING?To the author's knowledge, Boots on the ground and More than the Cold War are the only public assessments of the cost of Canadian military operations in Afghanistan. …