As such, comparative advantage is an important concept in global trade, and it's the reason many countries concentrate on trying to produce certain goods or services more efficiently than other countries.
In March 2013, the total cost of the Iraq War to date was estimated at $1.7 trillion by the Watson Institute of International Studies at Brown University. Some argue that the total cost of the war to the U.S. economy will range from $3 trillion to $6 trillion, including interest rates, by 2053, as described in the Watson Institute's report.
Other metrics also suggest that the country has not abandoned its wartime footing under Obama. As a candidate, Obama argued that the Iraq War represented an exorbitant cost for the American people. Over the course of his presidency, though, the U.S. military will have allocated more money to war-related initiatives than it did under Bush: $866 billion under Obama compared with $811 billion under Bush.