...is just as stupid a policy in warfighting as it is in policing schoolchildren. Cory Dauber has a good post on the obsession that the media has with daily casualty rates.

Given the caveats that every casualty is a tragic loss, what would be less than one loss a day? The return of the zero casualty policy of the Clinton years -- which I thought had been discredited both as something which distorted mission planning and which was ultimately unworkable in a war of wills with terrorists still thinking of Lebanon and Somalia as models for American behavior. So it is worth asking again -- did September 11th change our way of thinking about the risks we face and the way we will face them, or not?

Yes. The goal is not to have zero casualties--it's to win the war. Obviously we want to minimize casualties within the constraints of that goal, and don't want needless ones, but there's no right answer to how many there should be, and to focus on that is to lose focus on the real objective.

We need some perspective here. We still lost more men in the first hour of the Normandy landing than we've lost since we first went into Iraq, and this notion that the fact that we've now lost more soldiers since the end of major combat operations than during the the removal of the government has any significance is simply bizarre numerology.

All that means is that we had amazingly low casualties during that phase, not that the current ones are somehow "too high."

Here is another perspective: the U.S. has lost more soliders in Iraq than in the first 7 years of American involvement in Vietnam.

That being said, you cannot compare the effect of losses to a small, highly trained volunteer army which competes directly with college for recruits, with those sustained by a gigantic draft army.

That applies to WWII and Indochina.

More NYC police and firefighters died on 11 September 2001 than soldiers have died this year in Iraq. Let's also not forget the ratio of people who died in the Pentagon that day compared to Iraq this year also.

More people have died due to smoking related cancers this year than soldiers have died in Iraq.

SUVs killed more Americans in 1998 that the Iraq war so far.

Brittany Spears's CDs sales during March 2000 exceded the causality rates during military operations in Mesopotamia in 2003 (even including accidents and wounded).

In other words, Raoul, so what? What happened on 9-11 has NO bearing on the sustainability of the Iraq operation.

One might ask the question, though, if 9-11 and Iraq are tied together, why the dead of Iraq are not given the same public honors as the FNDY causalities of 2001. (i.e. the unprecedented ban on TV coverage of the return of coffins to Dover Air Force Base).

...the unprecedented ban on TV coverage of the return of coffins to Dover Air Force Base

That is not unprecedented, Duncan. It started back in the Clinton administration (during Kosovo, I believe).

But fine. I'll happily let CNN make a big deal out of coffins at Dover when I see them devoting at least half the time to honor what the contents of those coffins were actually achieving over there, instead of simply focusing on the fact that they're dead, and milking their relatives for pain, in a continuing attempt to do a "Vietnamization" of this war.

Rand, the ban was not enforced for either the USS Cole and Afghanistan causalities. Kosovo, of course, had no combat causalities so the issue was moot.

Regardless, you're mixing apples and eggs. There's nothing ceremonial about returning coffins to Dover. I doubt that there would be any objection to covering the funerals of the soldiers, just as the memorial for the firefighters was covered, but the media is too cheap or lazy to go to them all. They'd rather just shoot pictures of body bags to score propaganda points.

Duncan:

What the heck are your baseline years? 1954-1961?

This website makes it clear that, while in 1965 there were only 63 KIA, by 1966, there were some 6000.

http://www.grunt.com/vietnamwarcasualites.htm

So, unless you somehow figure that there's been a WHOLE lotta casualties unreported, it's extremely unlikely that we've had as many casualties in six months as in six YEARS in Vietnam.

Dean,
I'll see your website and raise you this one.

And consider the advances in trama medicine since 1965, and the higher deployment levels in Vietnam when comparing the KIA numbers. (the 1965 deployment was ~185,000).

But as I said, it isnt too relevent. A draft army (Cold War or World War) can afford to bleed a lot more than a volunteer, partially part-time, army.

BTW, Dean, you are talking about KIA - I am talking about killed in theater.

Therein lies the confusion. Hope that clears it up.

And just to flood the zone - Cory seems to have a problem with the concept of fractions...

It's worth noting what the quaggers are actually saying: that a nation of nearly 300 million people, with a $10 trillion economy, with nearly 1.5 million men under arms (all of them volunteers), cannot endure losing 2 soldiers killed and 10 soldiers wounded in action per day.

Jay,
The theoretical limits of United States strength are utterly irrelevent - what matters is what the Pentagon is willing (and able - remember lead times) to provide. The adminstration has shown no interest in increasing short term numbers so we have a maximum 130,000 troops in Iraq for the next six mouths, 56,000 of which are actually combat troops, providing the bulk of causalities. 2,000 - 3,000 causalities over that time period is a significant fraction. A 1 in 20 change of getting something shot off your person isnt good for moral or reenlistment either.

It seems clear that the US is on the defensive in Iraq and is unable to fulfill its primary task - providing security to civil Iraqi society. Moving more US troops in would undermine the North Korean and Enduring Freedom operations. I would not like to be a Pentagon planner right now.

Cheers,
Duncan

We havent lost 2000-3000 soldiers in the first six months, Duncan. I'm honest-to-god thankful you're not a Pentagon planner right now.

John,
Here in the real world "casualties" means "injured, killed, captured, or missing."

The current US casualty count is 2570.

Improve thy word power.

Cheers,
Duncan

Interestingly, I would like to know what effect improvements in medical treatements are having on the actual death rates.

It would also be interesting to know what the break down of the casualties is. Are these, for example, mostly "walking wounded" or are these serious injuries which will require multiple week/month recouperations?

Things were actually quite steady, even showing a slow declaine until October, where things suddenly doubled. After the crash, there is a chance they could do that again - I wonder what the "get concerned" point is for the logisitics planners?

This is beneath contempt.

I'll revise my earlier statement to this: the quaggers are saying that a 5% casualty rate -- all types of casualties, all causes, hangnails to truck bombs -- in the most exposed military units -- should make us turn tail and run, and abandon 50 million people in Afghanistan and Iraq to the tender mercies of fascists and theocrats.

Better do some reading up about past conflicts. Search terms may include: Antietam, Belleau Wood, Iwo Jima, Chosin Reservoir, Khe Sanh.

I really wonder whether age and quagging correlate. I'm old enough to remember when we were losing 500 men a week in Vietnam, and I mean 500 KIA. The idea that 5 KIA/wk should stop us is beyond pathetic.

I'd love to be a Pentagon planner right now. Cleaning up the Middle East rat's nest is just about the juiciest risk-management problem on Earth, and nobody else has both the will and the means to do it.

We just destroyed two of the most odious regimes on Earth -- easily the most unsordid act by the US government since Project Apollo. I pay at least $13,000 a year in Federal taxes alone, and for the first time in my adult life, I feel like it's going to good use.

Duncan,

In your first post, you said that the US had "lost more soliders [sic] in Iraq than in the first 7 years of American involvement in Vietnam." I read that (and I think Jay did as well) as KILLED.

Forgive us for reading what you wrote, and not understanding what you meant to say.

And, for that matter, it is clear from the page YOU provide that they are talking DEATHS, not wounded and missing. The names on the memorial, after all, are for the dead, not for the WIA. As you could see at the bottom of the very chart you cite "Total Deaths".

Second, and more importantly, your numbers only work if you equate 1957-1964 with what we are doing in Iraq. But, the reality is that the two are hardly comparable. Vietnam in 1957 was far more a guerilla war with US advisors advising local troops than US forces engaged in counterinsurgency.

And, interestingly, you cite killed in theater. Yet, the terms of the Vietnam Memorial state specifically that they include only those who died in Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, and coastal areas. Thus, American casualties in Kuwait, Jordan, or Qatar (in, say, a plane crash) would be included, but a crippled B-52 crashing at U-Tapao in Thailand would not. Apples and pears, perhaps?

Finally, you brought up the issue of a crunch on deployments. But that is true primarily because of US Army policies on rotation and time away from home/base. If the ARmy were to choose to extend time away from home/base (since these are internal regulations, not mandated by the US Congress), it could choose to do so, recognizing potential downsides for morale and re-enlistment. It does NOT therefore necessarily follow that you will have a manpower crunch.

For that matter, if the COngress chose to raise the ceiling on the size of the Army, recruiting numbers suggest that, in fact, both the Army and the Marines would probably be able to fill those additional numbers. The pipeline suggests it would take time for the new people to appear, of course, but it's not like we're exactly scraping the bottom of the manpower barrel, either.

My top post - I was talking about deaths
(I also said it was irrelevant-just as comparing Normandy was.)

My post at 8:10 pm last night, that was when I was discussing causalities.

Sorry for any confusion.

If they start some of the policies you discuss, they will be eating the seed corn. Dont expect good things for combat readiness if you extend deployments over a year. And dont expect to be able to contain North Korea if things go sour there in the next year.

And let me be clear - no where have I said pull out. Getting rid of Saddam and Mulla Omar are worthy goals. It woud be catastrophic if that is not achieved (and it hasn't) - indeed much worse than the situation before. Pretending this is World War II with a 8 million man army, sticking your head in a bag and going "lalala", and not facing up to a dire deployment situation will not win this war.

And refusing to hold accountable those put America in a situation where failure is readily possible - that is being irresponsible.

I take the above as Duncan's bona fides that he is primarily interested in how this risk is managed, and apologize for any intemperance in my earlier remarks. Time will tell whether our deployment in Iraq is truly threatened by guerilla tactics; I think any such development is exceedingly unlikely unless casualty rates increase by at least an order of magnitude. It will be interesting to see where we are in another couple of months.

> And refusing to hold accountable those put America in a situation where failure is readily possible - that is being irresponsible.

So, what is the recommended course of action?

Note that if it involves replacing Bush by any of the Dem candidates, it's a huge step backwards as their plan is "cut and run".

Andy,
The ONLY Dem cadidate who wants out is that weird little fella from Ohio. Even that friend of dicators, former Senator Carol Mosley-Braun, has said "What we broke, we must fix". The rest will only pull out troops if they can get replacements from elsewhere. Howard Dean has said "We cannot afford to fail."

They will not "cut and run".

Indeed, don't be surprised if the first one to start pushing for an exit strategy is Karl Rove - time-tabled for next summer...

Cheers,
Duncan