We hear a lot about this 1:1 ratio and I think it’s worth considering none of us would like to be on the other side of this equation. If the enemy was attacking us and saying “we are only killing one of your civilians for one of your soldiers,” none of us would want to be that “collateral damage.” Some wars in history involved large armies confronting primarily combatants, such as the battle of the Somme or Gettysburg. I think most of us would prefer to be civilians in that war, usually able to avoid the battle. If you read about Gettysburg and there had been thousands of civilians killed we’d see it differently. It’s true that modern wars are sometimes tragically fought among civilians. However, precision weapons have also ostensibly given us an ability to avoid casualties. If there are 1,000 enemy infantry in a town of 1,000 people, and the town is not an essential objective, is it good to destroy the whole place? I don’t think we’d want our civilians on the bad side of that equation. The ratio is problematic. The goal, especially with precision munitions, should be very low civilian casualties, not just the brute force of large numbers of casualties. It’s best to consider this number if we are the civilians that can be victims too. And I don’t think any of us want to be on that side of the equation. Better to humanize the civilians than just see them as a ratio. Let’s all take a step back and think hard on this.
