Low American Attrition Rates In the Iraq And Afghanistan Wars

Trying To Catch The American Disease -- Strategy Page

September 9, 2008: Staff officers around the world are desperately trying to make sense of how the United States has kept its casualties so low in Iraq and Afghanistan. To put it in simple terms, you were three times more likely to be killed or wounded in Vietnam, versus Iraq. And then there is the mystery of higher non-combat deaths in Afghanistan. In Vietnam, 19 percent of the deaths were from non-combat causes (accidents, disease, for the most part.) Same percentage in Iraq. During World War II, 25 percent of the dead were non-combat. In Afghanistan, 29 percent of the deaths were non-combat.

The war in Afghanistan has been notable for how low the casualty rate has been for troops killed in combat. We'll use a standard measure of combat losses, the number of troops in a combat division (12-20,000 troops) who are killed each day the division is in combat. Since late 2001, there have been .12 American combat deaths per division day in Afghanistan. During the Vietnam war, the average division lost 3.2 troops a day, which was similar to the losses suffered in Korea (1950-53). In Iraq, the losses have been .44 deaths per division per day. By comparison, during World War II the daily losses per American averaged (over 400-500 combat days) about twenty soldiers per day. On the Russian front, German and Russian divisions lost several times that, and often over a hundred a day for weeks on end.

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My Comment: One big change has been the development of new technologies to fight battles. Precision weapons, UAV Predator Drones, Data mining and information exchange with units rotating in and out, better intelligence gathering procedures and equipment, better communications .... this has completely changed the battlefield.

This American Army has the capability to effectively fight against both conventional and unconventional armies, and to still keep attrition rates low. We tend to forget that when the war started against Iraq in 2003, the Iraqi Army was not only one of the largest in the world fighting on their own territory, but it was also battle trained and experienced from their long war with Iran.

Other countries are studying the American military and their effectiveness .... but do not expect any country to copy it right now. No country has the resources, technology, nor experienced trainers, NCOs, and officer corps to produce the culture that presently exists in the U.S. military.