Dimitry Toukhcher
👤 SpeakerAppearances Over Time
Podcast Appearances
Now, here's the most important question.
Do civilians die in a war?
Yes or no?
So throughout history, we actually have a very good measure of this.
Throughout history, the civilian to combatant death ratio in war is nine to one.
Nine civilians die for every soldier in wars throughout history.
I didn't know that.
I'll repeat that.
Nine civilians die throughout history.
The mean war is nine civilians per combatant, right?
So war has devastating secondary effects.
These are called externalities.
One of the externalities of war is that civilians die, and it doesn't seem to be particularly preventable.
Like, it could be potentially mitigated.
We'll talk about that.
But throughout history, there have been many, many wars, okay?
It doesn't seem that civilians can escape the horrors of war, okay?
By the way, if you look at drone warfare, the civilian casualty rate is actually higher.
It's 12 to 1.
12 civilians per combatant, yeah.