The Costs of the War on Terrorism: Revisiting the Methodology used for Cost Estimation in Pakistan

Kamran Adil

Abstract
Pakistan paid a huge ‘cost’ for war on terror. Here, the term ‘cost’ refers to the economic cost.
In policy and media discussion, only the qualitative aspects of the cost for war on terror have
been discussed. As far as the quantitative aspect of this cost is concerned, there have been
little attempts, if any, to calculate such cost. There is, however, only one official report that
estimated the cost of war on terror, i.e. Economic Survey of Pakistan, 2010-11. However,
there are significant methodological issues with this estimation. This article discusses the
methodological issues in the estimation of cost for war on terror.

Keywords: War on Terror, Cost, Methodology, Fight, Pakistan