The Cost of War in Context

Although the loss of even one human life is a tragedy, the toll in the Iraq war is low by historical standards, not only in comparison to other wars but also in comparison to years of peace. When all causes are taken into account, the number of deaths of active duty military personnel during the Iraq war has not reached the number of peace time deaths during the 1980s. This is primarily do to the fact that the number of active duty military was much higher during the Cold War. See the graph below.



For source data see here.