Talk:Civilian casualty ratio

How were the wars in this list chosen?
How were the wars in this list chosen? I was just wondering How were the wars in this list chosen? Why is there no mentioned of the Syrian civil war for instance? Why the Russia – Ukraine war? 212.117.136.137 (talk) 13:55, 12 February 2024 (UTC)


 * Yeah, it feels like only wars where one of the participants is a first-world country were included. One odd example is the inclusion of the Israeli invasion of Lebanon but the exclusion (and even complete failure to mention) the Lebanon civil war (and Syria's takeover of Lebanon). 147.235.204.194 (talk) 08:25, 27 February 2024 (UTC)

Why is the Israeli–Palestinian conflict section so much larger than the rest?
Are we asserting that this conflict is more important the 2 world wars? Why such a long section? I think this should be reduced to one paragraph. Also, if we are focusing on wars that are not active then this section of the article should be removed all together. 212.117.136.137 (talk) 14:00, 12 February 2024 (UTC)


 * It seems clear to me that the information presented in the Israel-Palestine conflict section is all relevant. The conflict has had many distinct phases, and the casualty numbers are quite contentious. It would be unreasonable for the article to merge these phases into one or to only cover one of the sources for the numbers.
 * However, the same could also be said of WW2. The Japanese invasion of China is probably distinct enough from the German invasion of France in order to justify the article covering them separately. In my opinion, the WW2 section ought be expanded. Dieknon (talk) 20:36, 17 March 2024 (UTC)
 * I was wondering the same thing. It's striking that the Israel-Palestine conflict takes up almost as much space are THE ENTIRE rest of the article with all wars combined. This very misleading and represents a distorted view of reality. This section should be dramatically shortened. 2A0D:6FC0:72E:5700:4DD3:6D03:CBE6:B31C (talk) 21:14, 26 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Either the Israel section should be shortened or many conflicts should be added from around the globe. 109.253.184.208 (talk) 21:15, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

Counter-terrorist/counter-insurgent warfare is essentially different, but not treated as such here
The article as written is seriously misleading, both in overall analytic methodology and in specifics. It needs a total rewrite. For example, in terms of methodology, no distinctions are made in it about different kinds of warfare. It is as if such distinctions do not exist and need not even be considered. This utterly distorts the result. When armies clash in pitched battles, almost all the casualities are of combatants. This explains for example why initial civilian casualty figures in the Coalition allies' 2003 war in Iraq were very low, and similarly for the beginning of the American Coalition campaign in Afghanistan in 2001. This radically changed after the Iraqi and Afghani Talaban armies were practically wiped out, and the remaining Iraqi and Afghani militants threw off their uniforms, melted into the local village and urban populations, and fought using civilian shields. Using the total casualty figures while ignoring these changes not only disguises the brutality of the clash of armies, it gives a falsified general moral picture of those armies as having much better overall civilian:combatant ratios (sometimes "merely" 1:1) than they actually had when they engaged in some very bloody extensive "mop-up" local village/urban warfare, as in Mosul and Falluja. There the ratios could at best be 1:4 or even as bad as 19:1 (in contrast to the IDF's actual usual 1:1 ratio in its counter-terror Gaza conflicts), but this is not mentioned. Similarly, the simplified historical overview given in the article of most wars down through previous centuries chiefly relate to clashes of whole armies, and do not provide a base-line for other sorts of conflict. Most of them just were of armies as such, on each side, in which massed combatants fought each other, usually wearing military uniforms or at least carrying military gear clearly distinguishing them from civilians. These armies generally did not embed themselves in civilian areas and use them as shields, except when whole cities were being besieged. Civilian losses were naturally often relatively low in such wars. These simply cannot be compared as such with specifically counter-terrorism/counter-insurgency fighting. There we have to do with fighting people in civilian clothes hiding in urban or local settlement civilian populations and using them as shields, and in which rooting them out necessarily involves high risk of, and even high likelihood of, significant civilian casualties.

The article gives an entirely disproportionate space to Israel's conflicts with terrorists. Is there an agenda here of trying to make Israel's self-defense seem too costly in civilian casualties, delegitimising that? Is that a chief purpose in composing this article? One also notes in this regard the preferential credulous use of figures from very leftist anti-Israel activist NGOs like B'Tselem that do not even pretend to be non-partisan, and such dubious authorities as the International Red Cross itself that does pretend, very falsely, to non-partisanship. Most readers probably would be surprised to learn that the International Red Cross had a truly ignominious record during the Second World War in regard to Jews, doing very little to ensure better treatment or survival to those in Nazi-held lands, to prevent starvation and slaughters in local towns and cities, or in concentration- and outright death-camps, and not publicly criticising but rather even intentionally colluding with the Nazis and hiding the massive evidence it had of the death camps' very existence and the overall genocide. It is a matter of the public record, moreover, that the IRC subsequently refused for decades even to accept the Magen David Adom (Red Shield of David) as the local Israeli affiliate of the Red Cross, insisting that it not carry the Jewish symbol at all; that was somehow illegitimate, so only the Christian Red Cross or preferably the Muslim Red Crescent could be allowed even in Israel itself (naturally, the Magen David Adom ignored this demand, kept its Jewish symbol, also rejected the meaningless symbol suggested by the IRC as a final concession, and has only been allowed to affiliate in recent years). In the conflict in Gaza going on now, its top leaders have bluntly refused to facilitate delivery of medications or even to visit or promote decent treatment of Israeli hostages held by Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. It will not cooperate with the Magen David Adom, either, in such tasks. On this, see the article by Robert Williams, "The Red Cross Still Hates Jews," GateStone Institute.org for Feb. 11, 2024. So reliance on any of its figures relating to casualties in this conflict might well be mistaken. Extremely partisan groups, who have sometimes proven themselves supporters of or collaboraters with, genocide, should not be the basis of the article here.

I also note an absence from the article of any reference to the testimony by world-recognised top experts in counter-terrorist/counter-insurgency warfare, such as Col. (ret.) Richard Kemp, General Martin Dempsey, John Spencer, and others (more on them below), concerning the exceptionally low civilian:combatant ratios attained by the IDF in its various Gaza conflicts. (It is noteworthy even from a methodological point of view that there is no stylistic uniformity in references to civilian:combatant ratios in the article. There is a marked tendency just to present the numbers killed rather than the actual ratios. These, if presented in an uniform way, can be more easily compared, and perhaps not coincidentally, prove the unparalleled moral restraint Israel demands of its army.) Both Kemp and Spencer assert flatly that Israel's civilian to combatant ratios in terrorist/insurgent warfare are the lowest in world history. General Dempsey affirmed that the IDF has taken truly exceptional care to avoid civilian casualties and sets a standard in fighting terrorist and insurgence groups well superior to that of the Americans themselves, and from which they can learn. Israel's methods and accomplishments are already a key topic of study in military academies in the Western democracies, as setting a standard to be followed.

Col. Kemp led British forces in Ireland at the time of the I.R.A. terrorism, and also British forces in counter-terrorist situations elsewhere as well, in both NATO and U.N. conflicts, and notably in Coalition forces in Afghanistan (on his evaluation of the IDF morality and casualty figures, see his "The Morality of IDF Maneuvers in Gaza," JNS.org for Jan. 5, 2024, and his testimony back in 2010 before the U.N. Human Rights Council as given verbatim at "British Commander: The IDF Tried to Safeguard Civilians," Middle East Quarterly, Winter 2010. He refers to the 1:1 civilian:combatant ratio in several of his articles).

General Martin Dempsey was the Joint Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army during the Obama years, and sent a team of senior officers to monitor in place the IDF's methods and performance during the 2014 "Protective Edge" conflict. Their report led to General Dempsey's summary comments reported above.

John Spencer occupies the Chair of Urban Warfare Studies at the Modern War Institute at West Point, and has served in many military theatres over the decades. His evaluation makes some essential corrections to the sort of approach made in this Wikipedia article: "Memo to the 'Experts': Stop Comparing Israel's War in Gaza to Anything. It Has No Precedent," an Op-Ed in Newsweek Magazine for February 12, 2024.

There are actually many other top authorities whose analyses I could cite. However, the point is made: this article needs a total rewrite, and better sources.

One last remark in regard to misleading methodology in the article: there seems a deliberate omission of reference to the basic rule in the international laws relating to warfare, that if civilians offer their support to being civilian shields, actively aid or collude with combatants, they are to be considered as combatants. They are not to be included in the civilian category when reckoning casualties. They then become responsible for their own fate as combatants, and the onus of their deaths lies with the combatant terrorists or insurgents, not those fighting them. This is so no matter who those civilians are. So of course civilian police who act on behalf of terrorists or counter-insurgents are no longer in the category of civilians, in international law. There should be some section of this article which presents the basic international laws regarding "civilian casualties." 106.71.99.35 (talk) 06:59, 18 February 2024 (UTC)