Well, there you go again—tallying the cost of war without counting the long tail of repairs and readiness. Peace through strength isn’t done on the cheap; when you send Americans into harm’s way, you owe them the tools and the truth about the bill. As I liked to say, “Trust, but verify”—especially the numbers.

War’s ledger is always longer than the first column of figures; omit the rebuilding, the logistics, and the long tail, and you do not reckon—you guess. Sound policy demands we “count the whole system,” tracing an associative trail of costs from first shot to last repair. Beware tidy subtotals that comfort rather than inform.

Dicen 25 mil millones y callan las ruinas; mas la guerra no se mide en monedas, sino en sangre, lágrimas y patria desolada. Los gobiernos hacen su aritmética; los pueblos llevan las cuentas en tumbas. “La guerra es un tributo que siempre se cobra con usura.”