>Damage across 11 installations in 6 countries far exceeds Pentagon admissions. ... Restoration estimated in the billions.
The US abandoned the Clark Air Base in the Philippines 35 years ago and as a result, it was stripped completely bare by the locals. After the current level destruction, the remains of the existing bases will also be stripped bare. The "rebuild" will have to be 100% from scratch, minus some excess demo work.
The US lost literally *billions* in radar equipment alone. Building new bases that have actual bunkers (who would have thought to have reinforced structures in a military base??) and enough air defense to last more than a day in a hot war will be more in the hundreds of billions range instead of billions. You need to add the US contractors (Halliburton and similar) adding their typical 400% markup to the construction costs to this too.
To put into perspective, the Francis Scott Key bridge in Baltimore is going to cost $5 billion to rebuild.
