Cost of the Vietnam War

 

A woman comforts a seriously wounded South Vietnamese soldier waiting on the tarmac of the Phu Bai base to be transferred to Da Nang hospital in April 1972 - AFP
A woman comforts a seriously wounded South Vietnamese soldier waiting on the tarmac of the Phu Bai base to be transferred to Da Nang hospital in April 1972 - AFP

Some costs of the Vietnam War are hard to estimate but others were clearly high in terms of lives lost, money spent and opportunities wasted.

The United States National Archives lists US casualties as 58,220 dead and the Veterans Administration says 153,303 service members were wounded.

The US Defense Department puts the number of those still unaccounted for at 1,638. The latest soldier to be identified was Colonel William Cooper on December 22, 2014.

Vietnam puts its death toll at three million, including two million civilians.

The Vietnamese Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs says more than one million North Vietnamese soldiers and members of the Vietcong -- their communist allies in South Vietnam -- were killed in the fighting. Some 600,000 others were injured and 300,000 North Vietnamese soldiers and Vietcong soldiers were also listed as missing.

According to American official sources, the number of South Vietnamese soldiers killed is estimated at 200,000 while 500,000 were injured. Some 400,000 South Vietnamese civilians were also killed.

Regular US forces were present in Vietnam from 1961 to March 1973 but fighting between the North and South Vietnamese armies extended until late April 1975 and the fall of Saigon, now Ho Chi Minh City.

Jampacked with more than 7,000 refugees, South Vietnamese Navy ship HQ-504 arrives at Vung Tau, South Vietnam - AFP
Jampacked with more than 7,000 refugees, South Vietnamese Navy ship HQ-504 arrives at Vung Tau, South Vietnam - AFP

Starting in the spring of 1975, waves of South Vietnamese refugees tried to escape by sea and it has been estimated that 200,000-400,000 "boat people" died as well.

In monetary terms, hard figures are hard to come by.

The US Congressional Research Service has estimated the cost of the war in "constant year" dollars at $111 billion, a sum which in 2011 would have been the equivalent of $738 billion.

Others, including historians Harvard Sitikoff and George Herring, say the constant year cost was $167 billion.

Sitikoff also notes that massive spending on the war resulted in "runaway double-digit inflation and a mounting federal debt that ravaged the American economy" and devoured funds needed for social development.

Detailed figures on the monetary cost to North and South Vietnam are not available.