host: this is stephanie savell joining us. she's with brown university.he co-director of something known as the cost of war project. here to talk about the role of troops around the world. thank you for joining us today. guest: thanks so much for having me. host: for those who aren't familiar, tell us about the project and the purpose of it. guest: the cost of war project is based at brown university's watson institute for international and public affairs . and the project was founded in 2011 to draw attention to the kind of unacknowledged cost and consequences of the u.s. war on terrorism specifically. to really get information about the post-9/11 wars into the public debate and get americans talking about it, asking big questions, like, you know, are we meeting our goals, are we making americans safer, are we making citizens around the world safer? and that's the idea. just to get academic research into the public sphere. sphere. host: to help people understand then when it comes to first and foremost the military, how many troops does the united states