Kill ratio gives hint of who is winning in Iraq and Afghanistan

Jim Geraghty:

Every day, we are reminded of how many fine men and women have paid the ultimate price in the war on terror. I began to wonder, what is the casualty rate for the other side in this war?



In Iraq, I’ve seen several sources cite “about 55,000” insurgents killed; they’re listed as “Iraqi insurgents,” but I have not seen any specification of what percentage are Iraqi and what percentage are foreign fighters.



As of this writing, the number of U.S. troops who have died in Iraq stands at 2,867. I’ve also seen the figure 2,493 for deaths from hostile action.



This suggests that about 22 bad guys are killed for every U.S. combat death; 19 to 1 if you use the total U.S. death figure.



I can find no clear and specific number as to how many Taliban and al-Qaeda have been killed in Afghanistan since the start of hostilities there in 2001. I would prefer a better source than Wikipedia, but they list 5,500 killed and 1,000 captured. According to Wikipedia, 187 Americans have died in hostile action, 102 died in non-hostile action.



Again, about 29 to 1 in terms of combat deaths, or 19 to 1 in terms of all U.S. deaths.

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Are those ratios about as good as we can possibly expect against a non-uniformed foe who hides among civilians and uses IEDs, car bombs, and explosives in backpacks instead of tanks and infantry?



If you start from the assumption that the U.S. is in a war with the ideology of jihad, Islamism, Islamo-fascism, whatever you prefer to call the mentality that the murder of nonbelievers is a holy duty, and that there is no alternative to fighting and killing this foe, than by these measures both Iraq and Afghanistan are exceptionally effective offensives in this war. The bad guys who die on a battlefield in those faraway places cannot detonate a suicide belt in the middle of Times Square.

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If wars were decided by kill ratios we would have won in Vietnam and even in Mogadishu.

Where you are fighting an enemy in a combat persisting strategy the kill ratio is important. In fighting an enemy using a raiding strategy, the kill ratio becomes less significant. The latter wars are ones of political will and the polls at home become more decisive than what happens on the battle field.

The enemy in Iraq has been more astute in fighting on that battle field and has had the active assistance of a compliant media and many in the Democrat party who want to lose because they want to discredit fighting this type of warfare and for other political reasons. In fact the media and many opponents of the war use the kill ratio against us by conflating all the deaths as a result of our side of the war. They have the naive belief that if we stop fighting the killing will stop. There is substantial evidence to the contrary, but do not expect them to acknowledge facts inconsistent with their emotions.