The trillion $ war, part two

On the subject of this post, my buddy Keich here at the paper (who reads some pretty impressively boring publications) found this bit of information in an article called The Future of American Power in Foreign Affairs magazine:

US defense expenditure as a percent of the GDP is now 4.1 percent, lower than it was for most of the Cold War (under Dwight Eisenhower, it rose to 10 percent). ... The Iraq war my be a tragedy or a noble endeavor, but either way, it will not bankrupt the United States. The price tag for Iraq and Afghanistan together — $125 billion a year — represents less than one percent of GDP. The war in Vietnam, by comparison, cost the equivalent of 1.6 percent of US GDP in 1970, a large difference.

Of course, Keich also notes that we still spend more on our military than the next 15 countries on the list. So there's that.

By the way, if you're not picking up Foreign Affairs magazine too often, the article's author, Fareed Zakaria, is also interviewed in this month's Playboy magazine.

By the way, Keich assures me he only reads Foreign Affairs for the articles.