There are many ways that the NATO occupation of Afghanistan is to remain a major expense for decades to come, but perhaps the most significant is the massive Afghan military. Created by NATO as a way to escalate the conflict without adding more of their own troops, the Afghan military is expected to cost $6 billion a year going forward.
And that’s about $6 billion more than the Afghan government has to spend. Earlier this year NATO proposed a plan to trim the military by about a third, cutting the costs a bit beyond 2014.
Now NATO’s defense and foreign ministers are moving hard against the effort, saying that the cuts would threaten the war. Instead they are pushing a new scheme that would delay the cuts until at least 2017.
Still and all, this will be $6.2 billion a year in costs until 2017, and over $4.1 billion after. No one seems to know where that money is coming from, and beyond Britain’s $110 million pledge there has been no offer of funds. The assumption seems to be that the US will cover the difference.
It is obvious that war money comes from the U.S., but there’s no cause for concern because it’s printed money not backed by gold. When the mighty dollar loses its status as reserve currency, the money will dry up, and peace would prevail.