But, that depends on who is using the numbers. For immediate military use it is not important what happens after the war. For the general who is planning a war strategy, what matters is how much the army is losing manpower. For the society it does matter whether the lost manpower is dead or just missing one arm, but for the war strategy it doesn’t.
Albeit, I do somewhat disagree with this myself. I keep arguing that although the total military losses of Ukraine are close to those of the Russia, it makes a huge difference that the number of dead soldiers is smaller even in proportion to Ukraine’s population than the number of dead Russian soldiers is in proportion to the Russia’s population. It also seems that Ukraine’s recruitment capacity (in absolute numbers) is at least on par with that of the Russia and it’s unclear if its maximum capacity has even been reached.
Ukrainian soldiers seem to always receive decent prosthetics that enable them to remain in working life and be with their families. In that case it is not a huge loss for the society that a soldier has got seriously wounded. If the risk of death was as high as that of Russians’, there would be (even) less motivation to enlist.
But, be it like this or that, the reality is that the common practice in wars is to assume it makes no difference whether the lost soldier is dead or crippled, and because of that, they typically count military losses, not military deaths. Regardless of how removed that is.
Not true. A soldier that’s killed isn’t going back home to his family. He’ll never have kids. He’ll never contribute to the economy ever again.
Trying to say kills don’t matter in a war is removed.
I largely agree with you on that.
But, that depends on who is using the numbers. For immediate military use it is not important what happens after the war. For the general who is planning a war strategy, what matters is how much the army is losing manpower. For the society it does matter whether the lost manpower is dead or just missing one arm, but for the war strategy it doesn’t.
Albeit, I do somewhat disagree with this myself. I keep arguing that although the total military losses of Ukraine are close to those of the Russia, it makes a huge difference that the number of dead soldiers is smaller even in proportion to Ukraine’s population than the number of dead Russian soldiers is in proportion to the Russia’s population. It also seems that Ukraine’s recruitment capacity (in absolute numbers) is at least on par with that of the Russia and it’s unclear if its maximum capacity has even been reached.
Ukrainian soldiers seem to always receive decent prosthetics that enable them to remain in working life and be with their families. In that case it is not a huge loss for the society that a soldier has got seriously wounded. If the risk of death was as high as that of Russians’, there would be (even) less motivation to enlist.
But, be it like this or that, the reality is that the common practice in wars is to assume it makes no difference whether the lost soldier is dead or crippled, and because of that, they typically count military losses, not military deaths. Regardless of how removed that is.