Wars Less Deadly?

Whispering Death

Whispering Death

Active member
I've heard this claimed in one way or another by the normal american I talk to VERY frequently. I find it quite disturbing, but I want your opinion on it.

When I compare the 300,000 death toll in WW2 that America suffered to the 1,900 in Iraq currently the response is frequently, "Yeah, but war is different now." Now this is true in a good number of ways, yes. But one thing that is constantly brought up is basically "war is less deadly, fewer people die in wars now" which makes my jaw drop in bufuddlement.

How can these people look at 120mm sabot rounds capable of taking down an enemy tank from 2 miles away, B-52 bombers that can drop 70,000 pounds of ordanaince each, and a world where anybody can take a truck and use it to blow up hundreds of people, and think war is 'less deadly'?
 
Thats cause we havent fought a "War" in a long time. Probally since vietnam. A war to me is something that requires dramatic changes in society. Conversions of civilian factorys to military, the draft etc...
 
Whispering Death said:
I've heard this claimed in one way or another by the normal american I talk to VERY frequently. I find it quite disturbing, but I want your opinion on it.

When I compare the 300,000 death toll in WW2 that America suffered to the 1,900 in Iraq currently the response is frequently, "Yeah, but war is different now." Now this is true in a good number of ways, yes. But one thing that is constantly brought up is basically "war is less deadly, fewer people die in wars now" which makes my jaw drop in bufuddlement.

How can these people look at 120mm sabot rounds capable of taking down an enemy tank from 2 miles away, B-52 bombers that can drop 70,000 pounds of ordanaince each, and a world where anybody can take a truck and use it to blow up hundreds of people, and think war is 'less deadly'?
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He's livin' in the land of oz. Even if you have an elementary understanding of warfare, you should be able to deduct it's very dependent on your enemy.

At least that's what I thought, say... (pretend, now) if the US attacked the EU. Yeah.... casualties would skyrocket.
 
I would say war has become more precise than ever before and technology has a huge part to play in this. It is still just as deadly.

You can look at WWII, Korea and Vietnam with the same viewpoint because the technology was still quite primitive. Land navigation was still map and compass, radios were unsecure, bombs were all dumb, carpet bombing was a common practice, night vision was limited, bombing of cities was not frowned upon like it is today...you get the point.

Now we can take out a anti tank gun inside a residential area with little damage to the surrounding buildings. I saw more than one example of this in Iraq. We are no longer using big arse bombs to take out targets. We are using enough force to kill the military target without blasting everything esle within a 300 meter radius.

As the US goes, we also have light casualties because of 3 main reasons in Iraq. We own the sky, we have neutralized most enemy indirect fire and most of Iraq has been low intensity combat. A hit and run attack with mortars is nothing like the hours long artillery bombardments of WWII and Korea. If we engaged in combat where we did not own the skies and the enemy artillery was effective, we would see the mass casualties roll in. Remember, Artillery is still the King of Battle.

Today's war machine is still just as deadly. We just have not seen two big armies of equal quality and quantity go at it. The day is coming though
 
Whispering Death said:
I've heard this claimed in one way or another by the normal american I talk to VERY frequently. I find it quite disturbing, but I want your opinion on it.

When I compare the 300,000 death toll in WW2 that America suffered to the 1,900 in Iraq currently the response is frequently, "Yeah, but war is different now." Now this is true in a good number of ways, yes. But one thing that is constantly brought up is basically "war is less deadly, fewer people die in wars now" which makes my jaw drop in bufuddlement.

How can these people look at 120mm sabot rounds capable of taking down an enemy tank from 2 miles away, B-52 bombers that can drop 70,000 pounds of ordanaince each, and a world where anybody can take a truck and use it to blow up hundreds of people, and think war is 'less deadly'?
Click to expand...

I believe what they mean is that "War is less deadly for us, but our enemies are ****ed." Most of the people we are fighting are armed with aging Kalashnikovs, T-54's and a small number of T-72's, Mig-21's and are poorly trained. Obviously this is based almost solely on our wars with Iraq, but that is about the only major conflicts we have been involved in since Vietnam. And the US Army had what, 7 million men at the end of WWII and the current man power is 1.4 million including reserves? (Rough estimates off the top of my head based on a graph I saw a year ago when I enlisted into the Army.)

In January 39 US soldiers died in Iraq, 35 people were murdered in Detroit alone during the month of January. Compare that to other wars in the 20th Century.

From 1941-1945, 450,000 lives were lost ... an average of 112,500 per
year. (WWII)

From 1950-1953, 55,000 lives were lost ... an average of 18,334 per year. (Korea)

From 1965-1975, 58,000 lives were lost ... an average of 5,800 per year. (Vietnam)

Going by that trend yes, a person might begin to think that that war is not as dangerous. But odds are this..... person, is not taking into account the quality, quantity, and will to fight of our enemies since 1941. If you adjusted for the times you would find that Imperial Japan was far more powerful, organized and motivated than Iraq. China more powerful then Vietnam. I might add that the American public and irresponzible reporting by the media greatly contributed to America's only defeat. Let's not kid ourselves, if the Joint Chiefs had been given a free hand to fight the war how it needed to be fought (In other words, allowing the commanders in the field to make the tactical decisions, not Washington.) Vietnam would still probably be two countries today, whether that is a good thing or not I will leave up to you to decide.
 
Damien435 said:
I believe what they mean is that "War is less deadly for us, but our enemies are ****ed."
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No, when I've talked to people who have voiced this opinion or similar ones, most of them have been face-to-face discussions and are people that I at least know enough to know where they're comming from. It is a FREQUENT opinion, not just one guy, and what they mean is they really think that less people die in wars now. So if 2,000 people die in Iraq it is HUGELY worse than the 300,000 dying in WW2 because, and I quote, "come on, war is different now."

The people I'm taking about are the average college guys and gals I speak to on campus, at parties, dinner get-togethers etc. in my weekly happenings.
 
I don't think wars have become less deadly. Just less casualties. It's hard to explain what I mean. Although there are less deaths, the warfare (when it occurs) is just a brutal.
 
I think the analogy of WWII still holds sway. That was the last time our nation was directly faced with the possibility of conquest by a foreign power. It was very real and very possible. Nobody and I mean nobody was under any illusions to the contrary. When America entered the war we had no idea how powerful our existing aircraft carriers were and would become. With the battleships lying in the muddy bottom of Pearl Harbor we had every reason to believe that Japan would invade the West Coast. Our defenses were virtually non-existent. And to our opposite shore we had already seen Hitler's swift conquest of the European continent and the German army was still making vast strides into Russia at the time. Our throats were exposed and we knew it.

In thinking on this further I've come to another obvious conclusion. WWII was not only the last time our survival as a civilization was at stake, it was the only time since the Civil War that that was so for us. Beyond the memory of living men then and WWII is quickly approaching the same watermark for us now. Will we forget it all? I hope not. I hope that 9/11 will remain the wakeup call it was and will reverberate as Pearl Harbor did and still does. We are not safe - not this time by a nation that seeks to conquer us, but by an idea that our civilization must fall. The threat is an infinitely smaller force than we faced in WWII, but the damage that can be done is very real and we know that now if we had any doubts about it. Another obstacle faces us too. Nations and regimes can be cast down but ideas are very hard indeed to kill.
 
War cannot be less deadly. People killing other people, no matter how good/bad their training and weapons are, is going to be lethal. Yes technology an training does often prevent casualties, it cannot prevent all.
 
Bory said:
War cannot be less deadly. People killing other people, no matter how good/bad their training and weapons are, is going to be lethal. Yes technology an training does often prevent casualties, it cannot prevent all.
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See, this is what I'm talking about. I think that technology and training results in more casualties. I think people are under a false sense of security because of the huge disparity in technology and training America has vs. it's enemies in the last 20 years.

But it still remains that one pissed of Islamicist in 1905 could just run around with an inaccurate bolt action rifel. In 2005 that same Islamicist can pack a truck with explosives and take down a high-rise building killing a wounding hundreds.
 
i think that these people are trying to make their hopes into reality. war is not less deadly. sure, we havent faced anyone who's inflicted real casualties on us in a long time (i dont mean this in disrespect of the people who have given thier lives in Iraq). they want to think that war is less deadly. if we had taken on a country like Iraq in the 1940's, there would not have been as many casualties.

also, another reason people think wars are less deadly is all those "precision" weapons, and bulletproof vests. we have placed a lot of importance on the safety of non combatants, and gone to great lengths to preserve innocent lives, but these people seem to think that that means that war is less deadly, when it is not, its just more focused on one area, the enemy combatants.
 
Whispering Death said:
I've heard this claimed in one way or another by the normal american I talk to VERY frequently. I find it quite disturbing, but I want your opinion on it.

When I compare the 300,000 death toll in WW2 that America suffered to the 1,900 in Iraq currently the response is frequently, "Yeah, but war is different now." Now this is true in a good number of ways, yes. But one thing that is constantly brought up is basically "war is less deadly, fewer people die in wars now" which makes my jaw drop in bufuddlement.

How can these people look at 120mm sabot rounds capable of taking down an enemy tank from 2 miles away, B-52 bombers that can drop 70,000 pounds of ordanaince each, and a world where anybody can take a truck and use it to blow up hundreds of people, and think war is 'less deadly'?
Click to expand...


I see war as more deadly.

If you compare the 40's with modern day warfare.

Today every country has nuclear capibilities, germs and viruses are weapons, we can send a 500lb. bomb into a home through a window, we can hit target's in other counties and be back to catch the game, aircraft can fly over enemy territory and not be detected.

War is just as deadly, we have just adapted.
 
Medical care and technology has also advanced. Now casualtites that would have been fatal in WWII are not as great of a risk. People probally think war is safer now because of this and bullet proof risks. However, war is just as deadly and brutal as it ever has been. Since when the first two cavemen went at it with sticks to now. The end result is the same, people die. Technology just sometimes makes it more efficient, or difficult.
 
I believe ghost is on the right track bringing up the US focus on protecting non-combatants. Even in the 80's there was a focus on preserving enemy cultural centers, medical facilities, schools, etc. Iraq even tried to use this focus to it's benefit by storing weapons and supplies strategically in those areas. When we see nose-cone footage of retical patterns exploding, we begin to believe that every missile, rocket, and shell goes right where it's supposed to. When we here casualty reports consistently in the single digits, we begin to believe that, for the most part, our soldiers are fairly safe and secure. We become almost complacent and detached (unless someone we know personally is involved).

In the US at least, the civilian leadership of the armed forces has strived for years to put a positive spin on the death and destruction of war. While the military technology makes strategic strikes possible, the media technology makes putting a positive spin on warfare possible. But the bottom line hasn't changed: when you squeeze a trigger, press a fire button, or yank a lanyard, people die. The more "bad guys" you can kill in the shortest amount of time, the more "good guys" and non-combatants you can keep alive in the long run.
 
I guess as much as technology advances, the number of casualties decreases too.

In the near future, we will have less troops fighting in the battlefields and Armies will let unmanned machines fight the wars and on top of that, I guess we might be seeing Army of Clones!
 
phoenix_aim54 said:
I guess as much as technology advances, the number of casualties decreases too.

In the near future, we will have less troops fighting in the battlefields and Armies will let unmanned machines fight the wars and on top of that, I guess we might be seeing Army of Clones!
Click to expand...

See, the only problem I see with robots fighting is that in the end people will still fight people, what have they got to lose? They are about to be conquered by their enemies and as of yet have not fired a shot themselves, defeating your enemy's army these days is not enough to be victorious because the populace must also be subdued and unfortunately we are more "civilized" these days and can not use the most effective tactics available to us.
 
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