That comes amid increasingly bleak views of the Iran war, stagnating economic unhappiness, and broad discontent about Trump’s approach to these challenges. BILMES: Well, when I think about the war costs, there are four categories. There's the very up-front short-term operations, then the medium-term costs, the long-term costs and the economic costs. BILMES: I mean, the Pentagon and, I think, countries throughout history tend not to think about the long-term costs. In all previous U.S. wars - the War of 1812, the Civil War, World War I, World War II, the Spanish-American War, the Korean War, the Vietnam War - we raised taxes a lot to pay for wars.