The daily expenditure for these operations is now estimated at approximately $891 million. This includes the massive logistical overhead of maintaining more than 50,000 troops in the theater, operating two carrier strike groups—the USS Abraham Lincoln and the USS Gerald R. Ford—and sustaining a high tempo of sorties involving B-2 stealth bombers and F-35 fighter jets. Strategic think tanks, such as the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), have noted that the first 100 hours of the conflict alone burned through $3.7 billion. Much of this spending was never accounted for in the 2026 federal budget, forcing an immediate scramble for supplemental funding requests and complex reshuffling of existing departmental accounts.
