Military Fatalities Research Articles

At Any Cost: How Ukrainians Think about Self‐Defense Against Russia

AbstractHow do populations facing external aggression view the costs and benefits of self‐defense? In Western countries, war support has been shown to follow cost–benefit calculations, resembling the moral principle of proportionality. A categorical position, in contrast, means supporting self‐defense regardless of the costs. To evaluate which moral principle populations facing external aggression follow, we conducted a conjoint experiment with 1,160 Ukrainians in July 2022. We examine support for different strategies Ukraine could pursue against Russia, which vary regarding the political autonomy and territorial integrity they afford and three costs: civilian and military fatalities, and nuclear risk. We find that Ukrainians do not trade off autonomy or territory against these costs. A new method to rank conjoint‐attributes, computing “nested” marginal means, shows that respondents categorically reject political or territorial concessions, regardless of costs. This provides first experimental evidence that populations resisting external aggression do not subject war outcomes to cost–benefit calculations.

Ethnic and regional inequalities in Russian military fatalities in Ukraine: Preliminary findings from crowdsourced data

Ethnic and regional inequalities in Russian military fatalities in Ukraine: Preliminary findings from crowdsourced data

Danish military fatalities in international operations 2002–2018

IntroductionThis study describes deaths among Danish soldiers in international operations 2002–2018. Having been part of UN and later NATO forces in ex-Yugoslavia, in 2002 the first Danish contingent took part...

Injuries in Underbody Blast Fatalities: Identification of Five Distinct Mechanisms of Head Injury.

Previous research has shown that injuries to the head and neck were prevalent in 73% of all mounted fatalities of underbody blast. The mechanisms that cause such injuries to the central nervous system (CNS) are not yet known. The aim of this study was to identify the head and spinal injuries in fatalities due to underbody blast (UBB) and then develop hypotheses on the causative mechanisms. All U.K. military fatalities from UBB with an associated head injury that occurred during 2007-2013 in the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts were identified retrospectively. Computed tomography post-mortems (CTPMs) were interrogated for injuries to the head, neck, and spine. All injuries were documented and classified using a radiology classification. Pearson's chi-square and Fisher's exact tests were used to show a relationship between variables and form a hypothesis for injury mechanisms. There were 50 fatalities from UBB with an associated head injury. Of these, 46 had complete CTPMs available for analysis. Chi-square and Fisher's exact tests showed a relationship between lateral ventricle blood and injuries to the abdomen and thorax. Five partially overlapping injury constellations were identified: 1.multiple-level spinal injury with skull fracture and brainstem injury, 2.peri-mesencephalic hemorrhage, 3.spinal and brainstem injury, 4.parenchymal contusions with injury to C0-C1, and 5.an "eggshell" pattern of fractures from direct impact. These injury constellations can now be used to propose injury mechanisms to develop mitigation strategies or clinical treatments.

United States Military Fatalities During Operation Inherent Resolve and Operation Freedom's Sentinel.

Military operations provide a unified action and strategic approach to achieve national goals and objectives. Mortality reviews from military operations can guide injury prevention and casualty care efforts. A retrospective study was conducted on all U.S. military fatalities from Operation Inherent Resolve (OIR) in Iraq (2014-2021) and Operation Freedom's Sentinel (OFS) in Afghanistan (2015-2021). Data were obtained from autopsy reports and other existing records. Fatalities were evaluated for population characteristics; manner, cause, and location of death; and underlying atherosclerosis. Non-suicide trauma fatalities were also evaluated for injury severity, mechanism of death, injury survivability, death preventability, and opportunities for improvement. Of 213 U.S. military fatalities (median age, 29 years; male, 93.0%; prehospital, 89.2%), 49.8% were from OIR, and 50.2% were from OFS. More OIR fatalities were Reserve and National Guard forces (OIR 22.6%; OFS 5.6%), conventional forces (OIR 82.1%; OFS 65.4%), and support personnel (OIR 61.3%; OFS 33.6%). More OIR fatalities also resulted from disease and non-battle injury (OIR 83.0%; OFS 28.0%). The leading cause of death was injury (OIR 81.1%; OFS 98.1%). Manner of death differed as more homicides (OIR 18.9%; OFS 72.9%) were seen in OFS, and more deaths from natural causes (OIR 18.9%; OFS 1.9%) and suicides (OIR 29.2%; OFS 6.5%) were seen in OIR. The prevalence of underlying atherosclerosis was 14.2% in OIR and 18.7% in OFS. Of 146 non-suicide trauma fatalities, most multiple/blunt force injury deaths (62.2%) occurred in OIR, and most blast injury deaths (77.8%) and gunshot wound deaths (76.6%) occurred in OFS. The leading mechanism of death was catastrophic tissue destruction (80.8%). Most fatalities had non-survivable injuries (80.8%) and non-preventable deaths (97.3%). Comprehensive mortality reviews should routinely be conducted for all military operation deaths. Understanding death from both injury and disease can guide preemptive and responsive efforts to reduce death among military forces.

Lessons of the Cold War

Lessons of the Cold War

Measuring optimism bias among military personnel

High numbers of young military personnel die due to road traffic collisions (RTCs). Yet, there is a paucity of research related to the contributing factors (i.e., optimism bias and willingness to take risks) associated with RTCs and the examination of road safety education program tailored at reducing young military fatalities. In order to address this gap in the literature, we examined one specific road safety educational intervention tailored for the UK military personnel and investigated their attitudes towards the program, optimism bias and willingness to take risks. Measures evaluating their optimism bias, willingness to take risks and attitudes towards the program were asked after the participants attended the road safety interventions. The results revealed that young military personnel, aged 18–25, had higher optimism bias and willingness to take risks compared to older military personnel, and that this effect diminishes with age. The results provide importance evidence related to military personnel’s attitudes to risk-taking.

The Heat Death Line: Proposed Heat Index Alert Threshold for Preventing Heat-Related Fatalities in the Civilian Workforce.

A threshold Heat Index (HI) can serve as the basis for advising the civilian workforce about the risk of heat-related illnesses. We conducted a systematic review and compiled reports of work-related fatalities from heat-related illnesses. We calculated the HI for each fatality. Our objective was to expand upon the military's concept of a "heat death line" and identify an HI alert threshold for the civilian workforce. We identified 14 publications totaling 570 heat-related deaths. In the meta-analysis, the median HI was 101 with a range of 62 to 137. Almost all deaths (96 percent and 99 percent of civilian and military fatalities, respectively) occurred when HI ≥80, which is our proposed heat death line. Some existing HI-based heat advisories are set at a higher temperature value. However, many occupational heat-related illnesses occur below these thresholds, resulting in low sensitivity and a false sense of security. In at-risk outdoor industries, HI ≥80 should trigger hazard awareness and protective actions.

The Missing Men

Using spatial variation in World War I military fatalities in France, we show that the scarcity of men due to the war generated an upward shift in female labor force participation that persisted throughout the interwar period. Available data suggest that increased female labor supply accounts for this result. In particular, deteriorated marriage market conditions for single women and negative income shocks to war widows induced many of these women to enter the labor force after the war. In contrast, demand factors such as substitution toward female labor to compensate for the scarcity of male labor were of second-order importance.

BAD NEWS FROM THE FRONT AND FROM ABOVE: BOMBING RAIDS, MILITARY FATALITIES AND THE DEATH PENALTY IN NAZI GERMANY

We examine how the decision‐making of political elites respond to an imminent external threat to the existence of the state in times of war. To do so, we exploit exogeneous variation in exposure to battle deaths and bombing raids to estimate the effect of variation in the intensity of war on the probability that individuals charged with treason and/or high treason in Nazi Germany received the death sentence. A doubling of the number of military fatalities as well as bombing raids in the same week in which a defendant was sentenced increased the likelihood of receiving the death penalty by about 10 percentage points. (JEL K14, N44)

Information wars: Eastern Ukraine military conflict coverage in the Russian, Ukrainian and U.S. newscasts

The war in Eastern Ukraine is happening on the battlefield as well as in the informational realm. The two sides of this military conflict, Russia and Ukraine, are trying to shape public opinion in their own countries as well as abroad. Depending on the leaning of a media outlet, its audiences see very different pictures of this crisis. This study examined a year’s worth of coverage dealing with the Eastern Ukraine military conflict in major Russian, Ukrainian, and American newscasts. The analysis revealed significant differences in the choice of on-camera sources, reporting of civilian and military fatalities, and framing of the different sides of this conflict in these media.

Guns as a Symbol of (Fill-in-the-Blank)

Guns are symbolic of many things in America, but a critical assessment of these semiotic narratives shows them to be seriously limited in understanding the nature of gun violence in the United States, which has killed 30,000 per year on average for over two decades, 75 times more than all military fatalities in America’s “longest war” (in Afghanistan). An additional 70,000 people on average are wounded per year, again for over two decades. Gun violence has been misinterpreted by mass media and many other sources; it should be redefined as the major public health problem it is. Gun violence should be distinguished from the Second Amendment and “gun rights.” Politicians and partisans connect these issues for their own purposes, but they are distinct. Future constructive efforts should consciously disconnect these two issues.

TimHarris. Rebellion: Britain's First Stuart Kings, 1567‐1642. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2014. 588pp. ISBN 13: 9780199209002. £30.00; $45.00 (cloth).

TimHarris. Rebellion: Britain's First Stuart Kings, 1567‐1642. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2014. 588pp. ISBN 13: 9780199209002. £30.00; $45.00 (cloth).

Partisan Discourse, Polarization, and the Politics of Military Fatalities in Iraq

Public deliberation on the costs of war is important to democratic decision-making. This article explores congressional rhetoric about military fatalities within the U.S. House of Representatives and in television news media interviews from 2004 to 2006. In the House, the results are consistent with the “ideological opportunism” model of congressional rhetoric, which suggests that politicians–particularly the president’s partisan opponents–will be highly communicative about combat deaths in an effort to express ideological perspectives on war and criticize opponents’ positions. The results also show that as local combat fatalities accumulate, the president’s partisan opponents tend to become increasingly vocal about these deaths. The results do not support the “newsworthiness” model of congressional rhetoric in TV media interviews, which expects opposition party support and presidential party criticism of the president. Politicians on the far ends of the ideological spectrum dominate discussions about the loss of troops in the House, and politicians in both the House and TV news interviews advance largely unwavering partisan positions on the conduct of war. The findings suggest members of Congress reinforce political polarization in debates over the use of force.

British Public Opinion after a Decade of War: Attitudes to Iraq and Afghanistan

Using data from the 2011 British Social Attitudes survey (n = 3,311), this article compares British public opinion of the purposes and successes of the Iraq and Afghanistan missions. Public acceptance of military deaths/injuries, the accuracy of public estimates of military fatalities and how these differ according to opinions of the missions are determined. It is found that the British public is doubtful of the missions' achievements and cynical about their purposes. Perceptions of the campaigns were associated with the accuracy of estimations of UK military fatalities, and the acceptability of military deaths/injuries. Implications for social and political theory and British foreign policy are discussed.

Military Tradition, the Human Costs of War and the 2008 Election

Opposition to the Iraq War is thought to have contributed to the election of Barack Obama in 2008. The present study shows that controlling for other factors, including the percentage of the vote going to the prewar Democratic presidential candidate, states with relatively high levels of Iraq War military fatalities had a higher percentage vote for Obama. This result is consistent with a prediction derived from rational political theory and the results of several studies examining the impacts of war fatality rates in other military conflicts in previous elections. However, in the current study, we find that the effect of Iraq War fatalities on the percentage vote for Obama is conditioned by state military enlistment rates. Military fatalities have a strong effect in states with historically low military enlistment rates. But the effect disappears in states with very high levels of military enlistment.

Religion, Rational Political Theory, and the 2008 Presidential Election

AbstractStates of the United States differ significantly in terms of politically salient religious culture. But prior to the 2008 presidential election several studies inspired by rational political theory that found that during war time voting districts with high rates of military fatalities were more likely to vote against incumbent candidates and for anti-war candidates failed to control for variation in religious culture. In the present study, multivariate analyses that controlled for local differences in religious culture found that Iraq War military fatalities had an overall positive effect on the difference in the percent of the vote received in the 50 states and the District of Columbia by the anti-war Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama in the 2008 election and the pre-war Democratic presidential candidate Al Gore in the 2000 election. Tests for interaction, however, also found that the magnitude and ultimately the direction of this effect were conditioned by religious culture. In states with very high percentages of evangelical Protestants, the military fatality rate actually appeared to have a negative effect.

Why they die: civilian devastation in violent conflict

Why do civilians suffer most during times of violent conflict? Why are civilian fatalities as much as eight times higher, calculated globally for current conflicts, than military fatalities? In Why They Die, Daniel Rothbart and Karina V. Korostelina address these questions through a systematic study of civilian devastation in violent conflicts. Pushing aside the simplistic definition of war as a guns-and-blood battle between two militant groups, the authors investigate the identity politics underlying conflicts of many types. During a conflict, all those on the opposite side are perceived as the enemy, with little distinction between soldiers and civilians. As a result, random atrocities and systematic violence against civilian populations become acceptable. Rothbart and Korostelina devote the first half of the book to case studies: deportation of the Crimean Tatars from the Ukraine, genocide in Rwanda, the Lebanon War, and the war in Iraq. With the second half, they present new methodological tools for understanding different types of violent conflict and discuss the implications of these tools for conflict resolution.

Regime-Transitions in the 2003-2010 Iraq War: An Approach Based on Correlations of Daily Fatalities

This paper studied the dynamics of civilian and military fatalities in the Iraq War during the 2003-2010 period. R/S-scaling analysis, a method to characterize fractality and memory effects in sequences, was used to estimate time variations in the correlations of daily fatalities. Together with concepts from complex social networks and systems theories, the dynamics of correlations (measured in terms of the so-called scaling Hurst exponent) provide a framework to describe the Iraq War evolution and to evaluate the effects of the major military and political events. In terms of changes in a correlations parameter, five regimes in the evolution of the war were identified. The first regime, occurring in the first months after the invasion, corresponds to a conventional confrontation. In the second regime occurred in the last months of 2004, the dynamics of civilian fatalities evolved toward uncorrelated behavior, indicating that the occurrence of daily fatalities was basically governed by random processes. This is in contrast to the dynamics of military fatalities that showed increased correlations. The second regime can be seen as the advent of a chaotic episode where the different insurgency groups acted within an erratic, poorly coordinated, manner. In the third regime that occurred in the first two 2005 quarters, correlations of civilian fatalities increased and converged into the correlations patterns of military fatalities, and this was interpreted as the surging of a well-organized, although non-centralized, insurgency structure. The fourth regime lasted from mid-2005 to the last 2007 months and showed an important correlation decrement for the military fatalities. This was related to the clash of two antagonist war structures, namely, the traditional centralized Coalition Army and a non-centralized insurgent army. Finally, the fifth regime, from mid-2007 to date, is characterized by stable fatality dynamics converging to uncorrelated behavior. It is apparent that this behavior is related to the start of the endgame to achieve stable economy and government. The concept of a scale-free network was used to describe the insurgency operations and the subsequent war and political events oriented to incorporate the former Baath Party member in the formation of a national Iraqi government. It is concluded that, given the availability of data (fatalities, economic activity, migration, etc.) in contemporary conflicts, the usage of mathematical methods and tools would provide further insights of the conflict evolution and, in this way, help to design better policies and strategies to reduce the adverse effects of violence on civilians.

BIRD AND FAIRWEATHER IN CONTEXT ASSESSING THE IED THREAT

As part of the section on military fatalities in Iraq and Afghanistan, Olivier Grouille analyses the data from Bird and Fairweather's study, exploring the implications for both institutional and public perceptions of the IED threat. He emphasises that IEDs are the insurgent's weapon of choice but argues that while a focus on force protection may be necessary, it will not be sufficient for success.