War Casualty Comparisons

Commenters debate and compare death tolls and civilian casualties in US-led wars like Iraq and Afghanistan, the Ukraine conflict, and historical wars such as WWII and Vietnam, often challenging underreported or selective figures.

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e.g US OK USSR AlQaeda WWI cissm.umd WW3 massacre.html brown.edu war million casualties dead wars died killed iraq afghanistan vietnam

Sample Comments

fartsucker69 Sep 1, 2022 View on HN

the known number of civilian deaths from various direct or indirect war actions (i.e. bombing etc.) is around 200.000, with around 10-20k being attributed to the U.S by most estimates.russia is getting closer every day but they'll take a while to reach it yet. but they are comparable numbers.

drweevil Jun 23, 2025 View on HN

This is dubiously sourced and defies comparisons with other conflicts. These casualty figures are at the same level as total US casualties in World War 2. It beggars belief that a regional war can produce such casualties. By contrast total US casualties in Vietnam were about 211,000, and Korea, about 140,000. Given the sources for these Russian casualty figures there is a very high likelihood that these numbers are grossly misstated.

ghostunit May 25, 2015 View on HN

"More than 6,500 young men and women died in these wars"I love how the hundreds of thousands of people WE killed somehow don't make it into this count.

resters May 14, 2019 View on HN

Does this include deaths from oil wars?

nandemo Nov 16, 2012 View on HN

The Iraq war alone has resulted in at least 100 thousand total deaths (including civilians) according to the most conservative estimates. How is the 5k figure relevant? That's like AlQaeda claiming 9/11 wasn't very violent, since they lost only a dozen combatants.

Youden Apr 10, 2022 View on HN

Where are you getting 7k from? Iraq Body Count [0] reports closer to 200k. Even if you use [1] to limit the death count to those caused by coalition forces, you get more than 7k just in 2003. Before you try to discredit it, the main criticism the project has received [2] is that it's undercounting.The current Ukraine civilian death count is only up to 1.5k so far [3], so Russia's got a lot of catching up to do before it can compete with what's happening in Iraq (though I truly

Onanymous Oct 8, 2022 View on HN

ehmmm... From the recent Bloomberg article I read the Russia claims ~6K dead and some unspecified western experts estimate it rather ~15K. Now USA lost ~60K in Vietnam. Sorry, that is not "as many or more". Nowhere near.

JetSpiegel Sep 28, 2024 View on HN

Do you doubt that a million iraquis died in the war that lasted almost a decade? How many people died in Ukraine or Gaza in a couple years?

amrocha Nov 12, 2022 View on HN

Dude saying less than 250000 civilians died is not the defense you think it is

DocTomoe Jan 19, 2022 View on HN

> The USSR-Afghanistan left an estimated 2 million dead. Nigerian Civil War between 1 and 3 million. France-Algeria War about 1 million. Korean War between 1.5 and 4.5 million dead. Vietnam between 1.3 and 4.5 million. I could go on really.That's peanuts, really. WW2 killed 70-85 million people, WW3 is projected from killing some 7 billion folks. No war between highly industrialised countries is a big win.