Deaths in each war, split by cause. For most of American history the enemy was the second most dangerous thing a servicemember faced — dysentery, typhoid, influenza and infection killed more Americans in uniform than bullets did, right up until the Second World War.

Revolutionary War, War of 1812 and the Indian Wars are shown at battle deaths only — non-battle deaths from those conflicts were never systematically recorded. Confederate figures rest on incomplete returns and exclude the 26,000–31,000 who died in Union prisons.

The clearest measure of what military medicine has achieved — but only if you compare like with like. Vietnam’s official wounded figure counts just those who needed hospital care; the modern figure counts everyone evacuated. Measured the same way, Vietnam is 6.4 : 1 and the post-9/11 wars are 9.8 : 1. The rise is real, and it is smaller than the raw numbers suggest.

Computed from the casualty figures in the table below. The hatched extension on Vietnam adds the 150,341 wounded who did not require hospital care, putting it on the same footing as the post-9/11 count. Two rows are absent because their wounded were never recorded: the Indian Wars and the Confederacy.

Click any column heading to sort. This table is the complete record behind both figures above.

Constant FY2011 dollars — military outlays only. The Second World War is not merely the most expensive war in American history; at its peak it consumed 35.8% of the entire national economy, a level of mobilisation nothing since has approached.

Congressional Research Service, Costs of Major U.S. Wars (RS22926). Military appropriations only — these figures exclude veterans’ benefits, interest on war debt, and postwar reconstruction, all of which are counted separately below.

The appropriation is not the price. The Costs of War project at Brown University put a full figure on the post-9/11 wars by counting what the Treasury will still be paying long after the last unit came home.

Veterans’ costs do not peak until decades after the fighting stops, because a wounded 22-year-old needs care for sixty years. The peak outlay for the First World War fell in 1969. For Vietnam it came around 2010. The post-9/11 bill will not crest until the 2040s.

Toplines are the reported national defense figure — the number quoted everywhere else — not the narrower amount authorized inside the act itself. The two bases are never mixed in one column.

FY2021 is the exception that proves the rule: no president signed it. It was vetoed on 23 December 2020, and Congress overrode the veto — 322–87 in the House, 81–13 in the Senate — making it law on 1 January 2021. It remains the only successful override of a veto in that administration. Where a fiscal-year act was signed in the previous calendar year, that is normal: the FY2024 act became law in December 2023.

Toplines are abstractions. These are the provisions that changed what a veteran or a surviving spouse receives.

The dollar column has risen by more than 40% in ten years. The share of the economy has barely moved, and the number of people in uniform has fallen. Money is not manpower.

These are dollars Congress made available to the Department of Defense, not dollars actually spent, and they are not adjusted for inflation. They cover DoD only — the Energy Department’s nuclear weapons work and other defense agencies add roughly $28–45 billion more in what is called the “national defense” total, which is the bigger number the NDAA authorizes and headlines usually quote. The VA is not in here at all; veterans’ benefits sit in a completely separate part of the federal budget — $445.5 billion for FY2026. War funding is already included in every year shown: the old separate war account was folded into the base budget after FY2021, so nothing needs adding on top. The percentage of GDP is calculated from money actually spent, which is why it does not move in step with the dollar column. End strength counts the five DoD services only — it excludes the Coast Guard and roughly 760,000 Guard and Reserve members.

FY2024’s jump to $909.6B is real, not a typo — it is the regular appropriation plus the April 2024 national security supplemental. FY2025 was the first year DoD ran under a full-year continuing resolution. FY2026 is an estimate. Adding $151.5 billion in mandatory reconciliation money to the FY2026 discretionary figure produces $1.009 trillion in total budgetary resources, which is where the “trillion-dollar Pentagon” headline comes from; the discretionary budget itself is $857.6 billion.

Commercial simulations a civilian can buy, ranked by how seriously they take the part that is not shooting — logistics, communication, medical, and the long stretches where nothing happens.

It is not a war game. It is included because the numbers put every figure on this page in perspective — and because, as the man who runs this site puts it, it’s war all the time.

Unit and servicemember counts are on different dates and different bases — 230 million units as of Take-Two’s Q4 FY2026 earnings call, against DMDC active-duty strength for the five DoD services in March 2025, which excludes the Coast Guard. The GTA V budget is the widely reported figure; Rockstar has never confirmed it. Lifetime revenue figures in circulation are analyst extrapolations and are not used here. Flyaway cost excludes sustainment — the F-35 programme’s full lifecycle cost runs past $2 trillion, which cuts the comparison the other way.