Military, War, and Peace Commons^™

The Vietnam War: Tax Costs And True Costs, Peter B. Lund

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

The Common Man in the Street, on being interviewed and asked the question, "What is the cost of the Vietnam War?," might respond, "I understand it's about twenty-five billion dollars a year." Twenty-five billion dollars per year is the current estimate of the tax cost of the Vietnam War and a figure which is widely circulated in this country. However, one need not be an especially astute observer of the domestic and international effects of the Vietnam situation as it affects this country domestically and internationally to realize that the cost to the United States of conducting a war of …