The economic costs of the German participation in the Afghanistan war
| Published date | 01 November 2011 |
| Date | 01 November 2011 |
| Author | Tilman Brück,Olaf J de Groot,Friedrich Schneider |
| DOI | 10.1177/0022343311419544 |
| Subject Matter | Research Articles |
The economic costs of the German
participation in the Afghanistan war
Tilman Bru
¨ck
Department of Development and Security, DIW Berlin
Olaf J de Groot
Department of Development and Security, DIW Berlin
Friedrich Schneider
Department of Development and Security, DIW Berlin
Abstract
In this article, we estimate the total costs of the German participation in the Afghanistan war, both past and future.
This is a hugely complex and uncertain calculation, which depends on several important assumptions. These assump-
tions pertain to the different cost channels and the shares of these channels that can be attributed to the German
participation in the war. By calculating the costs of the German participation, we provide a framework for other
researchers to do the same with respect to other countries. The article can function as a roadmap for researchers focus-
ing on this topic. In the end we find that, in the most realistic of several possible scenarios regarding the duration and
intensity of the German participation in the war in Afghanistan, the German share of the net present value of the
total costs of the war ranges from 26 billion Euro to 47 billion Euro. This large range reflects the uncertainties with
which the costs must be estimated. On an annual basis, we estimate that the German participation in the war costs
between 2.5 and 3 billion Euro. This contrasts with the official war budget, which is little over 1 billion Euro for
2010, showing that governments may not adequately represent the costs of military action.
Keywords
Afghanistan, costs of conflict, Germany, public expenditure, war finance
Introduction
In this article, we address how one can analyse the costs
of going to war. This is an important issue, which is dis-
cussed surprisingly rarely in the decisionmaking process
surrounding initial conflict participation. To a large
extent, this has to do with the difficulties of forecasting
such costs, but the result is that such decisions have been
made ad hoc. Additionally, even after the occurrence of a
war, there is often little debate about the calculation of
the magnitude of these costs. In recent years, this issue
does come up more regularly among policymakers, aca-
demics and the larger public, particularly in the United
States with regard to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Different studies have come up with very different esti-
mations, which indicates the degree of uncertainty
regarding both the cost channels to be included and the
underlying data. This shows that the absence of a useful
uniform framework for the analysis of the costs of going
to war is an important gap in the literature.
In this contribution, we estimate the costs of the
German involvement in the war in Afghanistan for the
first time. Since 2001, Germany has been participating
in the war in Afghanistan, in cooperation with mostly
Corresponding author:
odegroot@diw.de
Journal of Peace Research
48(6) 793–805
ªThe Author(s) 2011
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DOI: 10.1177/0022343311419544
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