The True Cost of Ending ISIS

Alexander Kirss

Security, Middle East

Is the U.S. ready to pay trillions of dollars to defeat ISIS and rebuild the Middle East?

What would be the true cost of definitively defeating the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS)? The answer should properly be measured in trillions of dollars, not $500 million per month for a no fly zone or the $330 million per month the United States is currently dispensing. It is increasingly clear that air power alone is insufficient either to defeat ISIS or to ensure the necessary post-conflict stability to prevent the rise of a similar terrorist threat in the region. Large numbers of ground troops—more than a token number of American Special Forces—would be required to achieve this goal.

Despite the recent announcement of an “Islamic military alliance against ISIS” headed by Saudi Arabia and the recent success of the Iraqi army in pushing ISIS out of the city of Ramadi, it is unlikely that the United States would be able to wholly outsource ground operations to local partners. Saudi Arabia is already engaged in an inconclusive military intervention in Yemen and the nascent alliance likely lacks both the political will for a long-term deployment and sufficient numbers of ground troops to pull it off. When the Iraqi army pivots north to the much larger city of Mosul, the potential for civilian casualties increases and the U.S.-led coalition will not be able to use airpower with as much impunity. Even if Kurdish forces were able to roll back ISIS on their own, the political costs for Turkey and the central Iraqi government would be far too high for either of them to support such a plan regardless of U.S. preferences.

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