The Cold War cost the United States and Soviet Union trillions of dollars over several decades. Estimates put total US spending at $13.1 trillion and total Soviet spending around $41.3 trillion in modern dollars. Both nations devoted significant portions of their GDPs to military spending and technology during this era of geopolitical tensions, an expensive strategic competition that shaped global events through the latter half of the 20th century.

1. Joe Boisvert
Adjunct Professor – Gulf Coast
State College Encore – Fall 2011
and Spring 2012

2. Definition of Cold War

It is called the Cold War because
neither the Soviet Union nor the
United States officially declared war on
each other, although both sides clearly
struggled to prevent the other side
from spreading its economic and
political systems around the World.

3. Quotes by Bernard Baruch.
Regarding Cold War
 Let us not be deceived — we are
 today in the midst of a cold war.
Our enemies are to be found
abroad and at home. Let us never
forget this: Our unrest is the
heart of their success. The peace
of the world is the hope and the
goal of our political system; it is
the despair and defeat of those
who stand against us.
Speech to the South Carolina
legislature, 1947

Regarding Freedom of
Opinion
Every man has a right to his own
opinion, but no man has a right
to be wrong in his facts.

4. End of the Cold War
 Throughout the 1980s, the Soviet Union fought an
increasingly frustrating war in Afghanistan
 At the same time, the Soviet economy faced the
continuously escalating costs of the arms race. Dissent at
home grew while the stagnant economy faltered under
the combined burden. Attempted reforms at home left
the Soviet Union unwilling to rebuff challenges to its
control in Eastern Europe.
 During 1989 and 1990, the Berlin Wall came
down, borders opened, and free elections ousted
Communist regimes everywhere in eastern Europe.
 In late 1991 the Soviet Union itself dissolved into its
component republics. With stunning speed, the Iron
Curtain was lifted and the Cold War came to an end.

5. Dangerous Games Under the Seas

6. Cost of the Cold War
 During the Cold War, the United States invested
heavily in submarine technology to counter a much
larger Soviet submarine force. Technological
superiority proved a winning but expensive strategy.
How expensive is hard to say. Determining the cost of
any advanced military technological system produced
in relatively small numbers raises complex problems.
There are no price lists for nuclear-powered
submarines.
 A 1998 study estimated that the United States
spent $2 trillion in 1996 dollars

7. Cold Was Costs US > 13.1 Trillion
Dollars $13,100,000,000,000
 Total cost of the Cold War (1948-1991) in 1996 dollars
= $13.1 Trillion.
 Average annual military spending during Cold War
= $298.5 Billion. (1945 to 1991) 46*298.5 =
13.7 Trillion not including lots of Stuff
 Average annual military spending during peacetime Cold
War (excluding Korean and Vietnam War years) = $285.4
Billion.
 Prepared by Martin Calhoun, Senior Research
Analyst, July 9, 1996.
 Viet Nam 684 Billion

9. Cost for Wars in Vietnam
 The new report by the Congressional Research
Service estimates the U.S. has spent $648 billion
on Iraq war operations, putting it in range with
the $686 billion, in 2008 dollars, spent on the
Vietnam War, the second most expensive war
behind World War II. Since the Sept.
11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the U.S. has doled out
almost $860 billion for military operations in
Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere around the world.

11. Funding for Security in One Fiscal
Year After the Cold War - US
 FUNDING FOR SPECIFIC PURPOSES- Of
the $475,500,000 authorized to be appropriated to
the Department of Defense for fiscal year 2000 in
section 301(23) for Cooperative Threat Reduction
programs, not more than the following amounts
may be obligated for the purposes specified:
This is After the Cold War

12.  ONSEQUENCES:
The Vietnam War cost the United
States 58,000 lives and 350,000
casualties. It also resulted in
between one and two million
Vietnamese deaths.

14. From the CIA Web Page
GNP = $1.465 trillion (2010 est.)
 Cost of Cold War Estimate – (1.465*.60)*46 = 41.3
Trillion dollars 41,300,000,000,000
 Based on Estimates of USSR using 60% of GNP/ year
for the 46 years of the Cold War in 2010 Dollars
In 2009 Russia was the world's largest exporter of
natural gas, the second largest exporter of oil, and the
third largest exporter of steel and primary aluminum -

15. Guesstimate of USSR Cold War
Costs
 Although the exact figures for the Soviet
Union are unknown, they spent a larger
percentage of their gross national product
on the war, maybe as much as 60 percent.
 Rough Estimate Using 2010 GNP and 46
Years
 41.3 Trillion

20. is 1,000,000,000 and a trillion is
1,000,000,000,000 so one trillion is
one thousand times one billion.

21. MILLION = 1,000,000
BILLION = 1,000,000,000
TRILLION = 1,000,000,000,000

23. Reminiscent of Soviet Days
:

25. An electromagnetic separation facility in
Sverdlovsk, Russia, used for uranium enrichment, is
shown in an undated high-altitude photograph taken
during the Cold War. Many of the spy photos made of the
Soviet Union taken in the urgent context of the Cold War
now aid in peaceful purposes, such as disarmament

26. Echoes of Cold War as two Russian
nuclear submarines are spotted off
U.S.
 Fears of a new Cold War stand-off grew last
night after two Russian nuclear submarines
were spotted patrolling off the coast of
America.
 The rare sighting has raised fears in the
Pentagon that the Kremlin is taking a more
aggressive stance against Washington.
 It was the first time since the early 1990s
that the Russians have sailed submarines as
close as 200 miles off the US coastline.


27. Russian Sub Just Seen off Our
Coast