L'impatto sull'economia e sul bilancio statunitense in un articolo del National Journal.

"(…) By conservative estimates, bin Laden cost the United States at least $3 trillion over the past 15 years, counting the disruptions he wrought on the domestic economy, the wars and heightened security triggered by the terrorist attacks he engineered, and the direct efforts to hunt him down. (…)
Other enemies throughout history have extracted higher gross costs, in blood and in treasure, from the United States. (…) World War II defense spending cost $4.4 trillion. At its peak, it sucked up nearly 40 percent of GDP, according to the Congressional Research Service. (…) But the payoff was immense. The war machine that revved up to defeat Germany and Japan powered the U.S. out of the Great Depression and into an unparalleled stretch of postwar growth. Jet engines and nuclear power spread into everyday lives. A new global economic order—forged at Bretton Woods, N.H., by the Allies in the waning days of the war—opened a floodgate of benefits through international trade. Returning soldiers dramatically improved the nation’s skills and education level, thanks to the GI Bill, and they produced a baby boom that would vastly expand the workforce. (…)
Most important, the fight against bin Laden has not produced the benefits that accompanied previous conflicts. The military escalation of the past 10 years did not stimulate the economy as the war effort did in the 1940s—with the exception of a few large defense contractors—in large part because today’s operations spend far less on soldiers and far more on fuel. Meanwhile, our national-security spending no longer drives innovation. The experts who spoke with National Journal could name only a few advancements spawned by the fight against bin Laden, including Predator drones and improved backup systems to protect information technology from a terrorist attack or other disaster. “The spin-off effects of military technology were demonstrably more apparent in the ’40s and ’50s and ’60s,” says Gordon Adams, a national-security expert at American Univeristy.
Another reason that so little economic benefit has come from this war is that it has produced less—not more—stability around the world. Stable countries, with functioning markets governed by the rule of law, make better trading partners; it’s easier to start a business, or tap national resources, or develop new products in times of tranquility than in times of strife. “If you can successfully pursue a military campaign and bring stability at the end of it, there is an economic benefit,” says economic historian Joshua Goldstein of the University of Massachusetts. “If we stabilized Libya, that would have an economic benefit.”