Publication Detail
U. S. Military Expenditures to Protect the Use of Persian Gulf Oil for Motor Vehicles: Report #15 in the series: The Annualized Social Cost of Motor-Vehicle Use in the United States, based on 1990-1991 Data
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UCD-ITS-RR-96-03(15)_rev2 Research Report Sustainable Transportation Energy Pathways (STEPS) |
Suggested Citation:
Delucchi, Mark A. and James J. Murphy (2006) U. S. Military Expenditures to Protect the Use of Persian Gulf Oil for Motor Vehicles: Report #15 in the series: The Annualized Social Cost of Motor-Vehicle Use in the United States, based on 1990-1991 Data. Institute of Transportation Studies, University of California, Davis, Research Report UCD-ITS-RR-96-03(15)_rev2
The U.S. spends a considerable amount of money protecting what it feels are its interests in the Persian Gulf. The exact amount is difficult to estimate, because the Defense budget is itemized not by region or mission, but rather, as shown in Table 15-4, by general function or cost area, such as operations and maintenance. Many of the functional areas cover more than one region or program, and hence one faces the difficult task of having to allocate joint costs to individual areas. Different analysts have handled this differently, and as a results estimates of the peacetime costs of maintaining a military presence in the Middle East range widely, from as little as $0.5 billion to as much as $64.5 billion per year (see Tables 15-5 and 15-6). Additional wartime costs may be a substantial fraction of this.
Revision history: First published April 1996. Revision 1 published October 2004 (revised to include defense expenditures related to wars in the Middle East). Revision 2 published October 2006 (revisions to most sections of the report).