Regime Change- VIII: The Repeating Pattern

The previous sections documented a consistent pattern: regime-change wars cost trillions, delivered no oil benefits to Americans, and reliably generated contractor revenue and personal and political benefits. This raises a final question: if these wars fail to achieve their stated goals, why do they keep happening?

The answer lies in structural features of how war decisions are made, funded, and reviewed. These features insulate decision-makers from the consequences of failure while preserving the financial incentives that make continued conflict profitable for a narrow group.

This section documents the mechanisms that allow failed wars to continue and unsuccessful strategies to expand.

Contents

Political Insulation from Outcomes
Short Time Horizons vs. Long Cost Tails
Normalization of Permanent War Spending
Lack of Formal Failure Accounting
Expansion Through Reinterpretation
Structural Incentives That Reward Continuation
Documented Pattern

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Political Insulation from Outcomes

War authorization and war accountability operate on different timescales.

Authorization occurs quickly. Congress passed the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force three days after the September 11 attacks. The vote was 420–1 in the House and 98–0 in the Senate. Brief debate preceded the Senate vote.

Consequences accumulate slowly. The 2001 AUMF remained in effect for over 20 years. By 2016, it had been cited 37 times to justify military operations in 14 countries. By 2020, U.S. forces conducted operations in 85 countries under counterterrorism authority. Most of these operations involved groups that did not exist on September 11, 2001.

The original authorization targeted “those nations, organizations, or persons” who planned or aided the 9/11 attacks. Successive administrations expanded this language to include “associated forces”—a phrase that does not appear in the authorization itself. Through executive branch interpretation, the authorization became authority to conduct military operations against any group the president determined was associated with terrorism.

Congress did not vote to expand the authorization. Executive branch lawyers reinterpreted existing language. No new congressional approval was required.

When the Libya intervention exceeded the War Powers Resolution’s 60-day limit in 2011, the administration argued the operations did not constitute “hostilities” and therefore the limit did not apply. The operation continued for seven months without congressional authorization.

Electoral cycles do not match war durations. Members of Congress face election every two years. Senators face election every six years. Presidents serve four-year terms. The post-9/11 wars lasted 20 years.

By the time war costs became fully apparent, most members of Congress who authorized the wars had left office. By the time long-term veteran care costs peaked, multiple election cycles had passed. Accountability became diffused across time and across changes in congressional membership.

Short Time Horizons vs. Long Cost Tails

Political incentives favor actions with immediate visibility and delayed costs.

Immediate benefits are visible:

Military action appears decisive
Authorization votes demonstrate toughness on security
Defense spending creates jobs in congressional districts
Contractor headquarters and manufacturing facilities employ local constituents

Long-term costs are diffused:

Veterans care costs peak 10–30 years after wars end
Interest on war borrowing accumulates over decades
Infrastructure opportunity costs are never directly visible
Civilian casualties overseas do not affect U.S. elections

The gap between decision and consequence creates a structural problem. The officials who authorize wars rarely face voters when the full costs become clear. The officials who must fund long-term obligations did not make the original authorization decisions.

This mismatch removes natural political feedback. If long-term costs appeared immediately, authorization votes might be different. If veterans care bills came due during the authorization debate, budget calculations might change. But costs that appear decades later do not affect votes taken today.

Normalization of Permanent War Spending

Post-9/11 war spending became baseline Pentagon budget expectations rather than emergency appropriations.

Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO) funding was created as a separate budget category for post-9/11 wars. This was intended as temporary war funding outside normal defense budgets. By 2010, OCO funding had become a regular annual appropriation averaging $100–150 billion.

When Afghanistan operations wound down in 2021, OCO funding did not decrease proportionally. Instead, much of the funding transferred to base Pentagon budgets or redirected to other priorities. The defense industry had expanded to accommodate war-level spending. Congressional districts had grown dependent on defense employment. Reducing spending would have meant eliminating jobs and contracts.

Base defense budgets also increased during war years. The Pentagon’s base budget (excluding OCO) grew from $287 billion in 2001 to $636 billion by 2022. War spending operated in addition to regular defense increases, not instead of them.

This created a ratchet effect. War spending increased total defense budgets. When wars wound down, budgets did not return to pre-war levels. The new higher baseline became normal.

Lack of Formal Failure Accounting

No standardized process exists to evaluate whether wars achieved their objectives or to halt spending when they fail.

Wars do not have defined end states. Unlike business projects with success metrics or infrastructure projects with completion criteria, wars authorized under the 2001 AUMF have no specified goals that would trigger termination.

The 2001 AUMF authorized force “to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States.” This goal has no measurable endpoint. Terrorism prevention is open-ended. No terrorist attack that did not occur can prove the mission succeeded. Any potential future threat justifies continued operations.

Mission failure does not trigger contract review. When Afghanistan reconstruction projects failed—buildings were never used, infrastructure never worked, training programs never achieved goals—contractors continued receiving payments. Failed programs led to expanded programs requiring additional contracts, not to financial penalties or bid restrictions.

Between 2005 and 2015, the Pentagon entered contracts worth $334 billion with companies that had been debarred, suspended, indicted, fined, convicted of fraud, or reached fraud settlement agreements. Past failure did not disqualify contractors from future awards.

No formal war closure process exists. Congress declares or authorizes wars but does not formally close them. The 2001 AUMF remains in effect. The 2002 Iraq AUMF remained in effect until 2025—23 years after passage. During that time, it was used to justify operations far beyond the Iraq War.

Expansion Through Reinterpretation

Failed strategies often lead to expanded operations through legal reinterpretation rather than new authorization.

The 2001 AUMF covered Afghanistan operations against Al-Qaeda and the Taliban. By 2011, it was used to justify operations in Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, and Libya. By 2014, it justified operations against ISIS—a group that did not exist in 2001 and that Al-Qaeda had disavowed.

These expansions did not require new congressional votes. Executive branch lawyers determined that new groups qualified as “associated forces” under existing authority.

The phrase “associated forces” created blank-check authority. Courts upheld executive branch determinations of which groups counted as associated forces. Congress did not define the term legislatively. The executive branch had sole authority to expand the list of targets.

The full list of groups the U.S. military considers itself authorized to fight under the 2001 AUMF is classified. Neither Congress nor the public has access to the complete list of entities against which the United States claims authorization to use military force.

Structural Incentives That Reward Continuation

Cost-plus contracting shifts risk from contractors to taxpayers. When programs exceed budgets, contractor payments increase rather than decrease. Financial risk falls on the government. Contractors earn fees based on costs incurred. Higher costs mean higher fees.

Longer wars generate more cumulative revenue. A 20-year war generates 20 years of contracts. Each additional year of operations requires ammunition, equipment, maintenance, logistics, construction, and support services.

Failed strategies generate expansion contracts. When reconstruction fails, new contracts are issued to rebuild. When training programs fail, new contracts are issued for revised programs. When equipment underperforms, new contracts are issued for replacement equipment. Failure generates billable work.

Lobbying preserves spending levels. Defense contractors spent $2.5 billion on lobbying over two decades. This averaged more than one lobbyist per member of Congress. Lobbying focuses on maintaining budget levels, securing specific contracts, and identifying new threats to justify continued spending.

These incentives operate independent of war outcomes. Contractors profit from mission success. Contractors profit from mission failure. Contractors profit from mission continuation. The one scenario that interrupts revenue is mission termination.

Documented Pattern

The mechanisms documented above create a system in which:

Authorization is easy
Expansion is unilateral
Accountability is diffused
Failure has no penalty
Termination is difficult

This structure does not require intent or conspiracy. It operates through ordinary institutional features: contract structures, appropriations processes, electoral cycles, legal interpretation, and lobbying relationships.

The result is a system that continues failed wars because the mechanisms that would halt them either do not exist or operate too slowly to matter.

Wars persist not because they succeed but because the system contains no effective mechanism to stop them when they fail.

Sources for this article are collected in the Bibliography and Methodology.

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