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Document Published Aerospace Power Journal - Summer 2000
LT COL ERIC A. ASH, EDITOR
WE DO NOT have such a doctrine, but no doubt casualty aversion involves the raison d’être of the Air Force. Our argument from the beginning has always been that airpower, and now aerospace power, can help win war with less cost to human life. Ultimately, casualty aversion drives the desired end state of war—a secure peace. It is also why we try to avoid war in the first place. Without our aversion to casualties, there would be no such concept as classical deterrence theory. Respect for human life and consequent casualty consciousness are fundamental to what makes a nation civilized; and in America’s position as a world superpower, the sanctity of human life in time of war or peace certainly ought to be our foremost example to the world of how to act.
Military leadership today is taking more than its fair share of criticism for perceived excessive casualty aversion. Critics should remember that our current technologies provide phenomenal war-fighting capabilities to limit collateral damage and unnecessary casualties on both sides (with particular emphasis on unnecessary, lest we forget that the business of war is still killing). It is therefore a moral issue that leadership must be casualty conscious in prosecuting war, for technology has turned acceptable wastage rates of the past into today’s indictments of horrifying military incompetence.
A good thing taken to excess, however, can become a problem. In postwar analysis of various conflicts (Kosovo included), it is customary to look for problems and take verbal potshots at various actors and processes responsible for less-than-perfect military efforts: “the doctrine was faulty,” “the leadership was out of touch,” “the equipment was incompatible,” or “the process was mired in bureaucratic politics.” Indeed, such is war—with its quagmire of fog and friction. Now it seems casualty aversion is contributing to the friction.
Dr. Jeff Record opens up the subject with harsh criticism and hard-hitting arguments against what he calls “elitist” casualty aversion as a legacy of Vietnam and subsequent national security policy. Closely related pieces by Dr. Karl Mueller and Maj Charles Hyde contribute other perspectives of this issue, and Dr. Dan Mortensen takes Record to task in his Vortices counterpiece. Many of the other pieces in this issue of APJ also relate in some way or another to the topics of casualty avoidance and aversion.
Part of the casualty issue is that casualties are—gruesome as it sounds—a vested financial interest (read ratings) for the media. With respect to Record’s argument, the media might be considered elite were it not for some of the media’s de facto casualty agenda to sell a story. Certainly there is an elite element to the media—respected, responsible journalists who provide invaluable service to our nation—whose outspoken casualty aversion can most likely be attributed to their role and legitimate point of view as critics from the fourth estate. Yet, pushing to excess casualty stories and other travails of military conflict are many plebeian sensationalists who fail to place such issues in proper perspective. It is all the more ironic, then, that media casualty attention can also come too close to home for journalists risking their lives to cover a story. (Last year 34 reporters were killed and another 87 imprisoned while on the job.)
Excessive casualty aversion no longer involves just body counts. High-cost technologies make “machine counts” just as much an issue. Whether the cost is in flesh and blood or steel, casualty aversion twists the famous saying that the worst thing in war is to be the last casualty—for perhaps now the first is the last. The situation reminds us of fifteenth-century Italy, where casualty-averse mercenary condottieri conducted protracted and nearly bloodless warfare. They came to expect few losses and were unwilling to accept them against a difficult enemy. In Machiavelli’s apocryphal account of the battle of Zagonara, for example, there was apparently one casualty, a Lodovico degli Obizzi, who was thrown from his horse and suffocated in the mud. Have we arrived here again today where we count friendly losses of people and machines in single digits for an entire campaign? “So what is wrong with that?” some might ask.
The heart of the problem is that excessive casualty aversion breeds casualties. It gets in the way of victory. A downhill ski racer who enters the gates fearing a broken leg will not win the race and will probably fall. Likewise, a platoon leader in a firefight can face two options: (1) lose a few people while maneuvering to win the fight, or (2) fail to maneuver out of fear and lose everyone. In other words, not just tactically but strategically we must effectively apply the principles of mass, maneuver, and all the other time-honored principles of war that, incidentally, do not include casualty aversion. Obviously, we should not have a casualty-aversion doctrine, but so too should we not allow casualty aversion to drive our doctrine. We become the casualty if casualty aversion becomes our Achilles’ heel.
Disclaimer
The conclusions and opinions expressed in this document are those of the author cultivated in the freedom of expression, academic environment of Air University. They do not reflect the official position of the U.S. Government, Department of Defense, the United States Air Force or the Air University.
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