Official overseas base cost figures exclude all war-zone maintenance spending

Evidence

Far more significantly, my $71.8 billion calculation does not include the costs of maintaining bases and troops in war zones such as Afghanistan and Iraq. Congress instructs the OCS to exclude all of the costs of maintaining bases and personnel overseas if those costs are funded by war appropriations, which appear in a separate annual Overseas Contingency Operations budget. On the other hand, one could argue that the entire war budget should be counted: after all, war spending crucially helps maintain the physical security and political legitimacy of U.S. bases in Afghanistan, Iraq, and beyond. Calculating the overseas base expenses without including the immense costs of the “contingency operations” revolving around those bases is a bit like setting up a family budget without accounting for the cost of a luxury vacation beachfront rental, or discussing the finances of the New York Yankees while excluding the cost of the team’s big free-agent signings. — David Vine, Base Nation_ How U.S. Military Bases…, 643

Categorization

• QUESTION: The war-budget exclusion is a methodological choice Congress mandates; worth checking whether this exclusion is unique to the US accounting or common across allies.
• XREF: connects to: The Pentagon cost report omits overseas troop health care. — David Vine, Base Nation_ How U.S. Military Bases…, 622; Official overseas base cost figures omit over a billion dollars in construction — David Vine, Base Nation_ How U.S. Military Bases…, 623