JAN 23, 2025 | NEWS | By Esa George
Since 2001, the United States has spent $8 trillion on war, and is estimated to have reached between $9 and $10 trillion after the 2022 fiscal year.
“What could our government have done with $8 trillion?” asked David Vine, anthropologist, writer, and First Monday speaker.
On Monday, Jan. 20, the Kathryn Mohrman Theatre in Armstrong Hall hosted the inaugural First Monday speakers of 2025, sponsored by the college’s departments of History, Political Science and Economics and Business.
Kicking off Block 5, Sofia Fenner, a CC political science professor, introduced the crowd of students, faculty members, and administrators to Vine and Jennifer Greenburg, a feminist political geographer and assistant professor of International Relations at the University of Sheffield respectively.
For attendees, Monday was not only the day of President Trump’s inauguration nor the national holiday Martin Luther King Jr. Day but an opportunity to learn from the two guests affiliated with the Costs of War Project.
The Costs of War Project, a nonprofit since 2010 located within Brown University’s Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs, engages in research and critical dialogue surrounding the human, environmental, financial and social consequences of war. Fenner addressed the audience with a question inspired by Dr. King’s philosophy: “Why are we speaking about war?”
“War has constituted the society we live in,” said Fenner as she concluded her introduction. A round of applause escaped from the audience as Greenburg and Vine approached the podium.
Greenburg thanked the audience for being in the auditorium at such a pivotal moment when our attention may be split between national news and ongoing uncertainties. To begin their presentation, Greenburg and Vine echoed King’s legacy of impact in their work; they shared Dr. King’s words, “American power should be harnessed in the service of peace and human beings.”
Vine followed by engaging the audience directly.
“How do you feel about war?” he asked, repeating himself to the listeners who have all been touched “all too intimately and painfully” by war.
The Costs of War Project was founded out of concern for the growing consequences of U.S.-initiated and U.S.-led wars. Vine explained that the project intends to do more than just study and conduct research. The project has influenced foreign policy decisions—decisions that cost lives.
He highlighted the underreporting of U.S. military-economic costs. During President Biden’s 2021 final withdrawal address from Afghanistan, the former President cited a $2 trillion cost that used Costs of War Project statistics and numbers; Vine pointed out that the U.S. government lacked the data they should have had.
“We very much want to put ourselves out of business,” Vine said.
Since 2001, more than 15,000 U.S. military personnel have been killed, and over 30,000 have lost their lives to suicide.
“The U.S. government will have spent between $9 trillion and $10 trillion on the military since 2001,” Vine said, stressing the “t” in “trillion.” The central question of his presentation emerged: “What could our government have done with $8 trillion?”
Vine concluded his portion of the presentation by reading an excerpt from the poem “The Pedagogy of Conflict” by Irish poet Pádraig Ó Tuama. He grew emotional as he recited: “But these days, I’ve been counting lives… one life, one life, one life…”
As attendees had just learned, U.S. wars since 2001 have been responsible for at least 4.5 million deaths and the displacement of over 38 million people, mostly civilians. “Each time is the first time that that life has been taken.”
The speakers shifted.
Greenburg then expanded on the project’s commitment to humanizing statistics. She addressed sexual assault in the U.S. military as another cost of war, describing it as an “epidemic” that worsened after 9/11. Greenburg echoed Vine’s earlier point by putting a human face to systemic issues. “In following the same spirit,” she hopes to emphasize that numbers must always be tied to lives.