Little Side Projects

We just finished a major project at work so I have a little free time. With that in mind, I want to touch on a few things that I set on the back burner. I copied down a bunch of data from CNN's assessment of "The cost of Iraq" early last month. The data interested me because I'm just that way. I like data. With that in mind, here are some of my inferences as result of the CNN data and a little free time on excel. First: This is a listing of the number of deaths in the combined Iraq and Afghan wars. The data are divided between the people that died of hostile action and those that died from non-hostile events. The distinction is key because the amount of non-hostile deaths, I would believe, is tied to the increased amount of activity and fatigue of operations. However, as anyone in the armed forces would more than likely add, those situations do happen in peace time as well. Non-hostile deaths are mostly accident and sickness related. Hostile deaths are tied to fighting and those who died from sustained wounds. The general trend of the non-hostile deaths shows a gradual decrease. This could be tied to better training, an increase in better living conditions or the decrease in the heavy use of airpower which is a dangerous element from a safety stand point. The hostile deaths show a bell effect over the general data with 3 main spikes. These spikes correspond with the increased ground war around Baghdad, the pre-election insurgency push and the fighting in Fallujah. The general data trend is that both the hostile and non-hostile deaths are currently on a decreasing trend. This could be tied to the reduction of insurgent capacity to operate, the increasing role of the Iraqi army, the Iraqi constitutional process or possible a planned push for major insurgency at a later date. I'm not psychic, I'm just a guy with a PC. This table show the death totals from the two conflicts by race. The numbers here need less description but still tell a very interesting story. The racial breakdown is almost exactly mirrored with the general population breakdown recorded by the US Census of the US by race. This would seem to poke holes in the popular belief that the armed forces have high minority deaths because of lower economic class recruiting efforts. The data for economic classes recruited was not available and would be interesting to look at. The final table shows the deaths of the Iraq and Afghan wars in relation to the casualty levels from other wars. Now given this data is as of August 2005, it will most likely change the totals between now and when a troop withdrawal is done. That being said, the data reflects a few salient points. The amount of troop loss in the Iraq war has not reached a proportionate level with any war we have had except the Persian Gulf War, which was largely an uncontested domination of airpower. Likewise we are still short of the numbers generated by the Revolutionary war, the War of 1812 and the Spanish-American war. In each of these instances is a key difference. In the case of the Persian Gulf war, the forces committed were largely assisted by other governments over a shorter period of time. In the case of the 3 older wars, the number of committed troops, time frame and medical technology were different. To be sure, the comparison of any of the conflicts on that list need to take those efforts into account. The medical advances we enjoy today would have vastly shaped the casualty numbers of the older wars. Likewise, it is more than likely that the increased effectiveness of battlefield technology has increased operational effectiveness while placing less infantry, for ages more than the backbone of the army, in harms way. This being the case, one can make a valid argument that the cost of fighting, to present date, does not equal the conflict of Vietnam or Korea. Whether Iraq is a "quagmire" remains to be seen but the data, at this point, does not support that. Where does all of this leave us? I'm not sure. The politicized nature of the war gives life to several arguments. There are a few things that can be safely assumed though: The cost of lives has decreased since the early days of the introduction of the fire arm to the battle field in proportion to the increase of medical ability. The Iraq war does not reflect a unfair burden of any race. The cost of lives is still proportionately smaller than that of historic conflicts in part due to the increase in technology. Despite intense spurts of activity, the insurgency has begun to lose it's effectiveness at claiming American lives.