Counting the dead

May 22 2023 The Guardian (Updated Aug 18 2023)

The uncounted: how millions died unseen in America’s post-9/11 wars

This article is based on a report “How Death Outlives War: The Reverberating Impact of the Post-9/11 Wars on Human Health”, by Stephanie Savell, and published by the Costs of War project at Brown University’s Watson Institute.

It deals mainly with post-9/11 wars, and with Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Libya and Somalia, but I trust that the facts would be true with all wars, and most recently with Ukraine.

So how do you count the dead from wars?

Combat deaths are direct deaths resulting from fighting, and are generally understood to mean soldiers, or other people directly involved in fighting.

Casualties is also used, and that can include both the dead and the wounded. From a military manpower point of view, casualty is someone who can not participate in the fighting, at least in the short term. From a human point of view, dead is dead and wounded is wounded, regardless of what you call it. Casualty just does not sound as bad as dead or wounded, and we humans do use a lot of euphemisms when talking about death.

Collateral damage usually means dead civilians, but like other euphemisms, sounds better. These are people who were not the real targets, but died in the crossfire, or were in the wrong place at the wrong time, or because the laws of war were not followed, i.e. someone did not care if civilians died in the fighting.

Indirect deaths, a term used in the article, are “caused not by outright violence but by consequent, ensuing economic collapse, loss of livelihoods, food insecurity, destruction of public health services, environmental contamination and continuing trauma, including mental health problems, domestic and sexual abuse and displacement.”

The catch here is that indirect deaths are not usually counted, they are ‘the uncounted’, and do not show up in reports and statistics. And “a reasonable, conservative average estimate for any contemporary conflict is a ratio of four indirect deaths for every one direct death.”

And since indirect deaths result from side effects, or after effects, of war, economic collapse, displacement, loss of health services and the like, they continue to pile up long after the conflict is over.

The dead are gone, but we can still do something for those suffering the consequences of the wars.

*****

Update: Aug 18 2023 The New York Times

Troop Deaths and Injuries in Ukraine War Near 500,000, U.S. Officials Say

This is obviously an estimate, but as of August 2023 the war in Ukraine has resulted in 500,000 military casualties, i.e. killed or wounded.

The Russian military casualties are estimated to be 120,000 killed and 180,000 wounded. The Ukrainian figures are estimated to be 70,000 killed and 120,000 wounded. (Civilian deaths are not included in these numbers.)

So, four indirect deaths to one direct death, in Ukraine that would mean 280,000 indirect deaths from this conflict, and the war is far from over.

Since the war is not fought on Russian territory, for Russia the calculation is different, but even the 120,000 killed and 180,000 wounded (so far) will have an effect.

The Soviet war in Afghanistan resulted, on the Soviet side that is, to about 20,000 killed and 50,000 wounded, and that war lasted nearly ten years. And as you can read in Wikipedia, “… the Soviet-Afghan War… has also been cited by scholars as a significant factor that contributed to the dissolution of the Soviet Union”.

This war in Ukraine has only been going on for a year and a half, and has already caused six times more killed.