What is it these days that makes us flinch so hard when battlefield casualty reports come in?
The French NATO troops in Afghanistan just had a terrible day by modern standards. Lost 10 dead and 21? wounded in a single engagement. Details are still coming in as to how, but that's not really the point. They died in a fight.
Financial Times article
Now I am aware of a number of cases where combat deaths in undeclared conflicts in the order of a dozen were simply swept under the rug (kept secret, families lied to), but that just re-enforces the issue. *What is it* about the current standard of life and living in the "First World" that makes even a single combat death news-worthy and worse, political fodder?
It is not like the history of (picking one country) American war is not laden with deaths. Yes, Americans in particular seem to prefer firepower rather than numbers in battle, so fewer soldiers are out there to be killed (but lots more damage is done to the places they fight) than many other countries, but still...
Look at this reasonably well-sourced list and scroll down to look at numbers like "Deaths per Day".
The numbers in most wars there, if they were reported today would be considered staggering.
Open Ground:
Two obvious courses available. Either: What is it about society that has changed? or; What is it about war that has changed?
And feel free to run with the implications of this considering the foes of civilization in the War right now are mostly willing to die by the score if they can kill one Westerner.
Have at it!
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5 comments:
Here's the BBC detailing the ambush and the *24 hour fight*.
from the BBC
Is is just the haves against the have nots? Is it more about getting my way or my way is the only way? I wish I knew. Yesterday I heard something really strange - or strange in a good/bad way. There was a report that Al Quaeda is having trouble recruiting suicide bombers and, therefore, is focusing more on technology for its killing. I wonder whether the depersonalization of war (you don't always see your opponent) is making it "easier" to wage war. I really don't know, but it seems to me that the aim now is to inflict as much damage on the other, with minimum casualties on your own side. Utter confusion.
I think it is just an effect specifically of the Boomers, and the cultural ethos they pushed forth. After Viet Nam, we never got engaged officially anywhee whee we didn't have overwhelming force, and we got through Gulf War 1, which as you remember sitting in the Pine Brook Inn in San mateo those manyyears ago, CNN was predictign the deaths of thousands of troops, and we just sort of nodded and expected it. When it turned out that it was just 300 and change,msot of whom died from a SCUD attack on a rear area barracks, Our expectations changed. Kosovo with it's Zero Deaths upped the Ante, and the iopening phase of the current Iraq war was only in the low hundreds. During those years lots of media and news stories on grieving parents, and the media's removal of violence from most entertainment (for the children) and the removal of Heroism (too retrograde in our progressive society) as well as our generally pampered risk averse culture have propagated it.
Also the numbers of troops comitted aren't the hundreds of thousands comitted im previous wars. Iheard is seaid thaat al the troops comitted to the Iraq war could be held in Candlestick park.
Just my two cents.
Scott
I have a theory about it.
I think it is a change in war and society.
Now that war has become so low casualty small number of deaths are all the news has to report on. Also they can now go into far greather debth, the BBC often gives a biography of every dead UK military.
This also has changed the way society views the losses. Getting a biography of someone rather than just a number means for a lot of people in some strange way it feels far more personal loss. It also reminds people of their mortality in a far greater way. Also in the modern urbanized society we are very detached from real mortality. Most death is hidden away. 150 we were all surrounded by death. So now most people are now far more sensetive to the thought of their inevitable demise, so many people cannot understand how someone could ever willingly put themselves in such a position that they could easily lose their life. Also i think the fall of belief in an afterworld mean many people think this world is the only life, and when life is over everything is over has heightened the fear of death.
To summerise: the rightful sense that the general should not waste the lives of their troops, has also morphed into a view in the civilian world that death is abhorant and almost un-natural.
Max
I think you folks are on to something(s) there, keep at it!
I'll even jump in with one more:
Birthrates and young death rates. Is the vastly lower rate birthrate and the simultanious near-elimination (by historical standards) of deaths in children and young adults (up to age ~16)a factor in all this?
plus point: seems to explain Western nations reluctance to lose young adults in war.
minus point: Russia has even lower birthrates than most, and they are nowhere near as casualty-sensitive.
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