by Matthew Rusling

    WASHINGTON, Dec. 10 (Xinhua) -- Despite the high price tag, the coming troop surge to Afghanistan is unlikely to break the U.S. federal budget, experts said.

    U.S. President Barack Obama last week announced the deployment of 30,000 extra troops in a bid to hand over security duties to Afghan forces and begin withdrawing by June 2011. Critics have voiced concern over costs at a time when the United States is already spending billions of dollars to claw its way out of the worst recession in more than 50 years.

    The White House Office of Management and Budget tags the war's price at around 1 million dollars a year for each additional soldier sent to the war-torn country, which adds around 30 billion dollars to current costs.

    Still, that is a small percentage of U.S. gross domestic product, according to Todd Harrison, a fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments.

    In 2010 the administration requested 68 billion dollars for operations in Afghanistan, plus the additional funding for the surge, which puts the total at 98 billion dollars. The U.S. GDP for 2010 is expected to be about 14.7 trillion dollars, so the warwould consume approximately 0.67 percent of GDP, he said.

    Peter Zeihan, vice president of analysis at Stratfor, said while the war is pricy, it remains affordable.

    "I don't mean to suggest that wars are cheap and that U.S. pockets are bottomless," he said. "But the U.S. has a lot of wiggle room compared to most states, with a 14 trillion dollar economy and a debt profile that is relatively small compared to most developed countries."

    Japan's debt, by contrast, stands at around 200 percent of gross domestic product, he noted.

    Still, costs will hinge on whether the administration meets the June 2011 deadline to start pulling out U.S. troops. If it doesn't, costs could rise.

    "You can never win in Afghanistan in the long run," he said of the country that has thwarted Soviet, British and other empires' attempts to subdue it. "Genghis Khan went through there and left quickly."

    But unlike former President George W. Bush's attempts to transform the Asian country to a mirror image of the United States, the current administration understands the impossibility of such a gargantuan task and has indicated plans to undertake only whatever nation building is necessary to give the Afghan army a fighting chance, Zeihan said.

    While many fret the war will add to the already soaring U.S. debt, the United States has in the past been in worse fiscal positions than the current one and as long as the dollar remains the global currency of choice -- and it is likely to -- the conflict will continue to be affordable, he said.

    Still, the White House has given little indication of how it plans to pay for the influx of thousands of additional troops, and many believe Obama, like his predecessor, will pay for it by increasing the deficit, which is already projected to reach 9 trillion dollars over the next decade.

    House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey, who opposes the war on grounds that it is not in the U.S. national interest, suggested recently that workers earning as little as 30,000 dollars pay a temporary tax to fund the war, although House Speaker Nancy Pelosi rejected the proposal.

    Harrison said the difficulty of transporting fuel into Afghanistan is one of the main cost drivers for U.S. operations there.

    The lack of infrastructure -- roads are in poor conditions or simply non-existent -- and landlocked location requires convoys to travel long distances over dangerous routes to deliver fuel. They must be protected by escorts and air cover, a factor that also pushes up the cost of fuel to between 25 dollars and 45 dollars per gallon (3.785 liters), Harrison said.

    And lack of infrastructure forces U.S. bases in Afghanistan to run on gas-guzzling generators, he said.

    In contrast, Iraq has an efficient infrastructure and pipelines that make fuel delivery much cheaper, he said.

    The government's current cost estimates seem accurate for now, although they could rise or fall depending on the intensity and frequency of operations in the war ravished country.

    "If the adversary steps up attacks and we step up operations, that costs more," he said. "If we win quickly, costs could go down."

    The war in Afghanistan is by no means the largest item on the U.S. federal budget -- the stimulus package totaled more than 700 billion dollars, he said.

    Still, war spending could add up over time and is climbing rapidly, doubling over the last year and reaching 6.7 billion dollars in June alone, he warned.

    And while costs have not surpassed those of the wars in Vietnam or Iraq, Afghanistan remains one of the United States' most expensive military operations, Harrison said.

    Isabel Sawhill, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, said while costs could become a concern if the conflict drags on for several years, war spending could boost the economy in the short term.

    "Any kind of spending -- even a war -- can be good for the economy," she said. "That's how we got out of the Depression in the 1930s."