Civilian casualty ratio

In armed conflicts, the civilian casualty ratio (also civilian death ratio, civilian-combatant ratio, etc.) is the ratio of civilian casualties to combatant casualties, or total casualties. The measurement can apply either to casualties inflicted by or to a particular belligerent, casualties inflicted in one aspect or arena of a conflict or to casualties in the conflict as a whole.

According to a 2001 study by the International Committee of the Red Cross, the civilian-to-soldier death ratio in wars fought since the mid-20th century has been 10:1, meaning ten civilian deaths for every soldier death.

Mexican Revolution (1910–20)
Although it's estimated at least 1 million people died in the Mexican Revolution, most died from disease and hunger as an indirect result of the war. Combat deaths are generally agreed to have totaled about 250,000. According to Eckhardt, these included 125,000 civilian deaths and 125,000 military deaths, creating a civilian-combatant death ratio of 1:1 among combat deaths.

World War I
Some 9 to 10 million combatants on both sides are estimated to have died during World War I, along with an estimated 6.6 million civilians. The civilian casualty rate in World War I is therefore approximately 2:3 or 40%. Most of the civilian fatalities were due to famine or Spanish flu rather than military action. The relatively low rate of civilian casualties in this war is due to the fact that the front lines on the main battlefront, the Western Front, were static for most of the war, so that civilians were able to avoid the combat zones. Casualties for the Western allies, consequently, were relatively slight. Germany, on the other hand, suffered 750,000 civilian dead during and after the war due to famine caused by the Allied blockade. Russia and Turkey suffered civilian casualties in the millions.

World War II
According to most sources, World War II was the most lethal war in world history, with some 70 million killed in six years. The civilian to combatant fatality rate in World War II lies somewhere between 3:2 and 2:1, or from 60% to 67%. The high rate of civilian casualties in this war was due in part to the increasing lethality of strategic weapons, used to target enemy industrial or population centres, and famines caused by economic disruption. A substantial number of civilians in this war were also deliberately killed by the Axis Powers as a result of racial policies (for example, the Holocaust) or ethnic cleansing campaigns.

Korean War
The median total estimated Korean civilian deaths in the Korean War is 1,547,000. The total estimated North Korean military deaths is 215,000 and the estimated Chinese military deaths is over 400,000. In addition to this the Republic of Korea military deaths is around 138,000 dead and the military deaths for the United Nations side is around 40,000. The estimated Korean war military dead is around 793,000 deaths. The civilian-combatant death ratio in the war is approximately 2:1 or more precisely 195%. One source estimates that 20% of the total population of North Korea perished in the war.

Vietnam War
The Vietnamese government has estimated the number of Vietnamese civilians killed in the Vietnam War at two million, and the number of NVA and Viet Cong killed at 1.1 million — estimates which approximate those of a number of other sources. This would give a civilian-combatant fatality rate of approximately 2:1, or more precisely 182%. These figures do not include civilians killed in Cambodia and Laos. However, the lowest estimate of 411,000 civilians killed during the war, (including civilians killed in Cambodia and Laos), would give a civilian-combatant fatality rate of approximately 1:3, or more precisely 37%.

1982 Lebanon War
In 1981, the PLO in Lebanon began shelling villages in northern Israel. In 1982, Israel mounted its response. The war culminated in a seven-week long Israeli naval, air and artillery bombardment of Lebanon's capital, Beirut, where the PLO had retreated. The bombardment eventually came to an end with an internationally brokered settlement in which the PLO forces were given safe passage to evacuate the country.

According to the International Red Cross, by the end of the first week of the war alone, some 10,000 people, including 2,000 combatants, had been killed, and 16,000 wounded—a civilian-combatant fatality rate of 5:1. Lebanese government sources later estimated that by the end of the siege of Beirut, a total of about 18,000 had been killed, an estimated 85% of whom were civilians.

Some regard the Lebanese figure as highly exaggerated. Professor Richard A. Gabriel notes that between 1,000 and 3,000 civilians were killed in the southern campaign. An additional 4,000 to 5,000 civilians died from all actions of all sides during the siege of Beirut. Some 2,000 Syrian soldiers were killed during the Lebanon campaign and a further 2,400 PLO guerillas were also killed. Of these, 1,000 PLO guerillas were killed during the siege. According to Professor Gabriel the ratio of civilian deaths to combatants during the siege was about 6 to 1 but this ratio includes civilian deaths from all actions of all sides.

Chechen wars
During the First Chechen War, 4,000 separatist fighters and 40,000 civilians are estimated to have died, giving a civilian-combatant ratio of 10:1. The numbers for the Second Chechen War are 3,000 fighters and 13,000 civilians, for a ratio of 43:10. The combined ratio for both wars is 76:10. Casualty numbers for the conflict are notoriously unreliable. The estimates of the civilian casualties during the First Chechen war range from 20,000 to 100,000, with remaining numbers being similarly unreliable. The tactics employed by Russian forces in both wars were heavily criticized by human rights groups, which accused them of indiscriminate bombing and shelling of civilian areas and other crimes.

NATO in Yugoslavia
In 1999, NATO intervened in the Kosovo War with a bombing campaign against Yugoslav forces, who were alleged to be conducting a campaign of ethnic cleansing. The bombing lasted about 2½ months, until forcing the withdrawal of the Yugoslav army from Kosovo.

Estimates for the number of casualties caused by the bombing vary widely depending on the source. NATO unofficially claimed a toll of 5,000 enemy combatants killed by the bombardment; the Yugoslav government, on the other hand, gave a figure of 638 of its security forces killed in Kosovo. Estimates for the civilian toll are similarly disparate. Human Rights Watch counted approximately 500 civilians killed by the bombing; the Yugoslav government estimated between 1,200 and 5,000.

If the NATO figures are to be believed, the bombings achieved a civilian to combatant kill ratio of about 1:10, on the Yugoslav government's figures, conversely, the ratio would be between 4:1 and 10:1. If the most conservative estimates from the sources cited above are used, the ratio was around 1:1.

According to military historian and Israeli Ambassador to the United States Michael Oren, for every Serbian soldier killed by NATO in 1999 (the period in which Operation Allied Force took place), four civilians died, a civilian to combatant casualty ratio of 4:1. Oren cites this figure as evidence that "even the most moral army can make mistakes, especially in dense urban warfare".

Coalition forces in the Iraq War
According to a 2010 assessment by John Sloboda of Iraq Body Count, a United Kingdom-based organization, American and Coalition forces had killed at least 28,736 combatants as well as 13,807 civilians in the Iraq War, indicating an essential civilian to combatant casualty ratio of 1:2. It is unclear what percentage of civilians were killed in the initial invasion by the coalition.

US drone strikes in Pakistan
The civilian casualty rate for U.S. drone strikes in Pakistan is notoriously difficult to quantify. The U.S. itself puts the number of civilians killed from drone strikes in the last two years at no more than 20 to 30, a total that is far too low according to a spokesman for the NGO CIVIC. At the other extreme, Daniel L. Byman of the Brookings Institution suggests that drone strikes may kill "10 or so civilians" for every militant killed, which would represent a civilian to combatant casualty ratio of 10:1. Byman argues that civilian killings constitute a humanitarian tragedy and create dangerous political problems, including damage to the legitimacy of the Pakistani government and alienation of the Pakistani populace from America. A study by the New America Foundation in February estimated that between 830 and 1,210 civilians in total have been killed by drone strikes since 2004, a civilian fatality rate of about 30%, or 1:2.

Israeli–Palestinian conflict
The head of the Shin Bet reported to the Israeli Cabinet that of the 810 Palestinians killed in Gaza in 2006 and 2007, 200 were civilians (a ratio of approximately 1:3). Haaretz assessed this to be an underestimation of civilian casualties. Using B'tselem's figures they calculated that 816 Palestinians had been killed in Gaza during the two year period, 360 of whom were civilians.

Israeli airstrikes on militants in the Gaza Strip
The civilian casualty rate of the targeted assassinations was surveyed by Haaretz military journalist Amos Harel. In 2002 and 2003, the ratio was 1:1, meaning one civilian killed for every militant killed. Harel called this period "the dark days" because of the relatively high civilian death toll as compared to later years. He attributed this to an Israeli Air Force (IAF) practice of attacking militants even when they were located in densely populated areas. While there were always safety rules, argued Harel, these were "bent" at times in view of the target's importance.

The civilian casualty ratio dropped steeply to 1:28 in late 2005, meaning one civilian killed for every 28 militants killed. Harel credited this drop to the new IAF chief Eliezer Shkedi's policies. The ratio rose again in 2006 to 1:10, a fact that Harel blamed on "several IAF mishaps". However, in 2007 and 2008 the ratio dropped to an unprecedented level of less than 1:30, or 2–3 percent of the total casualties being civilian. Figures showing an improvement from 1:1 in 2002 to 1:30 in 2008 were also cited by Jerusalem Post journalist Yaakov Katz.

Professor Alan Dershowitz of Harvard Law School stated that the 2008 figure of 1:30 represents the lowest civilian to combatant casualty ratio in history in the setting of combating terrorism. Dershowitz criticized the international media and human rights organizations for not taking sufficient note of it. He also argued that even this figure may be misleading because not all civilians are innocent bystanders.

In October 2009, Dershowitz stated that the ratio for Israel's campaign of targeted assassinations stood at 1 civilian for every 28 terrorists. He argued that "this is the best ratio of any country in the world that is fighting asymmetrical warfare against terrorists who hide behind civilians. It is far better than the ratio achieved by Great Britain and the United States in Iraq or Afghanistan, where both nations employ targeted killings of terrorist leaders."

Testifying before the United Nations, Col. Richard Kemp, a British commander, stated that: Mr. President, based on my knowledge and experience, I can say this: During Operation Cast Lead, the Israeli Defence Forces did more to safeguard the rights of civilians in a combat zone than any other army in the history of warfare.

Israel did so while facing an enemy that deliberately positioned its military capability behind the human shield of the civilian population...

The truth is that the IDF took extraordinary measures to give Gaza civilians notice of targeted areas, dropping over 2 million leaflets, and making over 100,000 phone calls. Many missions that could have taken out Hamas military capability were aborted to prevent civilian casualties. During the conflict, the IDF allowed huge amounts of humanitarian aid into Gaza. To deliver aid virtually into your enemy's hands is, to the military tactician, normally quite unthinkable. But the IDF took on those risks.

Despite all of this, of course innocent civilians were killed. War is chaos and full of mistakes. There have been mistakes by the British, American and other forces in Afghanistan and in Iraq, many of which can be put down to human error. But mistakes are not war crimes...

More than anything, the civilian casualties were a consequence of Hamas way of fighting. Hamas deliberately tried to sacrifice their own civilians.

Although the IDF has the lowest ratio in the world, they attribute civilian deaths to Hamas' use of human shields, as well as other groups in Gaza that use human shields. The IDF blog lists various counter-terrorism methods used by the IDF to minimize civilian casualties and lower the civilian casualty ratio, and includes videos related to each method:
 * Pinpoint targeting - singling out terrorists for an airstrike in a way that won't harm civilian bystanders.
 * Aborting strikes due to risk of civilians being injured or killed.
 * Advanced technology - the IDF has heavily invested in smart bombs, and has developed special missiles, such as the F-16I Sufa and the Delilah Missile, which has the ability to cancel a strike while in the air.

Israel in the Gaza War
Several analysts have attempted to calculate the Israel Defense Force's civilian casualty ratio in Operation Cast Lead during the Gaza War. All have noted that the ratio differs significantly depending on which figures are used regarding the total number of casualties and their identity. The main sets of figures are those published by the IDF, essentially corroborated by Hamas, the opposing belligerent in the conflict, on the one hand; and those published by B'Tselem on the other hand. The final IDF report identified 709 militants out of a total of 1,161 Gaza fatalities, with another 162 whose status could not be confirmed (300 were ID'd as civilians).

Journalist Yaakov Katz states in The Jerusalem Post that the ratio is 1:3 according to the Israeli figures and 60% civilians (3:2) according to B'Tselem's figures. Katz attributes the IDF's low ratio in the Gaza War and in the year preceding it to Israel's investment in special weapons systems, including small smart bombs that minimize collateral damage, and to an upscaled Israeli effort to warn civilians to flee areas and to divert missiles at the last moment if civilians entered a planned strike zone. Katz notes that over 81 percent of the 5,000 missiles the IDF dropped in the Gaza Strip during the operation were smart bombs, a percentage which he states is unprecedented in modern warfare.

Journalist and commentator Evelyn Gordon writes in Commentary that the civilian casualty ratio in Operation Cast Lead was 39 percent (2:3), using however only the preliminary Israeli estimates, but that 56 or 74 percent were civilians according to B'Tselem's figures, depending on whether 248 Hamas policemen are considered combatants or civilians; and 65 or 83 percent according to the figures of the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights. Gordon notes that all of these ratios, even if the worse were correct, are lower than the normal civilian-to-combatant wartime fatality ratio in wars elsewhere, as given by the Red Cross, and states that the comparison shows that the IDF was unusually successful at minimizing civilian casualty rates. She concludes by charging that terrorists fight from among civilians because they know that the inevitable civilian casualties will result in opprobrium for their victims who dare to fight back, and that this norm will not change as long as this modus operandi remains profitable.

Colonel Richard Kemp, former Commander of British Forces in Afghanistan, spoke in 2011 about Israeli operations in the Gaza War. He said that a study published by the United Nations showed "that the ratio of civilian to combatant deaths in Gaza was by far the lowest in any asymmetric conflict in the history of warfare." He stated that this ratio was less than 1:1, and compared it favorably to the estimated ratios in NATO operations in Afghanistan (3:1), western campaigns in Iraq and Kosovo (believed to be 4:1), and the conflicts in Chechnya and Serbia (much higher than 4:1, according to anecdotal evidence). Kemp argued that the low ratio was achieved through unprecedented measures by the IDF to minimize civilian casualties, which included providing warnings to the population via telephone calls, radio broadcasts and leaflets, as well as granting pilots the discretion to abort a strike if they perceived too great a risk of civilian casualties. He also stated that the civilian casualties that did occur could be seen in light of Hamas' tactical use of Gazan civilians "as human shields, to hide behind, to stand between Israeli forces and their own fighters" and strategic use of them for exploitation of their deaths in the media.

The UN estimate that there has been an average three-to-one ratio of civilian to combatant deaths in such conflicts worldwide. Three civilians for every combatant killed. That is the estimated ratio in Afghanistan: three to one. In Iraq, and in Kosovo, it was worse: the ratio is believed to be four-to-one. Anecdotal evidence suggests the ratios were very much higher in Chechnya and Serbia. In Gaza, it was less than one-to-one.”