America has been involved in 11 major conflicts since it's birth. Of all of these conflicts roughly 6.8 trillion has been spent on war, and around 656,846 Americans have died. This works out to each American death being worth roughly $10,445,52. Whilst the cost for every enemy combatant killed is roughly $501,602.
These are combat deaths not civilian/disease.
By war: /per person $542,728 - American Revolution $686,168 - War of 1812 $1,371,032 - Mexican-American War $371,000 - American Civil War $23,464,935 - Spanish-American War $6,254,447 - World War 1 $1,407,613 - World War 2 $10,106,997 - Korean War $15,558,460 - Vietnam War $689,189,189 - Gulf War $203,709,028 - War on Terror
How did we rack up such a cost in the Gulf War? The sheer number of units we mobilized?
Jackson Hall
Wait, this is the average cost of killing someone in each war? That's an interesting and grim statistic.
Jordan Foster
>656,846 Americans have been killed in war.
Not true. 620,000 died in the American Civil War alone, with 644,000 in all other wars. About 1,264,000 Americans have died in war.
Camden Bennett
Assuming your numbers are correct (6.8 trillion, 1,264,000), that end up being $5,379,746.84 per death.
Robert Gutierrez
That's the cost of producing weapons (firearms, canons/artillery, ships, tanks, aircraft, missles etc. etc.) The soldiers are just for operating them, reproduce without defence spending and cost the army nothing more than what they need to train them. They are worth more or less depending on on their skills, experience and importance for the armed forces to properly work, but really very cheap compared to the equipment.
Daniel Bailey
We went all stops and didn't fight it on the cheap. Arguably why we won that war so decisively whereas the War on Terror has turned into a disastrous quagmire.
Alexander Kelly
A recent estimate put the death toll of the American Civil War at over 1 million
That would make it the single deadliest conflict in American history by a factor of nearly two.
Nolan Ward
I don't see the causal connection between total amount of money spent divided by total American war deaths to come up with a "value" of an American military life. The overwhelming majority of that money is spent not to kill American soldiers, but to project some kind of influence and force somewhere.
Jayden Jenkins
Crazy to think so many people died for no other reason that to protect the institution of slavery.
Jason Hernandez
Some died to save the Union.
Ryan Barnes
Regardless of what people think they died for, the war was caused by a bunch of rich sourthernors who didn't want to give up LARPing as European aristocracy and keep their slaves.
Connor Wilson
Lots died because they were forced to or deceived into going RIP sons of the Eire
Easton Wright
I'm talking about Northerners.
Noah Nguyen
>War on Terror is in the same category as 19th century inter-state conflicts OP is retarded
Cooper Barnes
This isnt a "MUH STATES RIGHTS!" argument or anything, I know full well the core of the war is slavery. BUT, I've read a few things about southerners who were initially against the war or neutral fought in it just to protect their homes. I didnt buy this excuse at first, but the more I think about it, it makes sense and is in some way a decent reason. Like if you hate the president at the time, and a foreign country invaded america, you would still fight to defend america.
Eli Walker
...
James Hughes
those recent increases piss me off. just bomb them
Jack Mitchell
(You)
Nicholas Anderson
Continuing this approach comes with a lot of costs.
Ryan Long
I said combat deaths not diseases you fucking dummy
Jackson Reed
My thoughts are that these statistics mean literally nothing, because they're completely devoid of context.
Alexander Green
>and around 656,846 Americans have died.
Wait that can't be right, 700,000 Americans died in the Civil War because everyone killed in it was American and the casualties were insane. And prior to WW1 in our entire history, minus the Civil War, our total death toll from all wars was like...30k. And 440k died in WW2 iirc.
David Campbell
Honestly the majority of southerners entered the war for no reason other than they were drafted. But after the First Battle of Bull Run, both sides suffered massive casualties and it basically became a "blood begets blood" war for both armies.
Jonathan Wood
Bombs are super expensive
Owen Price
Mostly the extremely low casualties. Gulf war was a short, get in, fuck shit up, get out mission.
Adrian Green
What's the cheapest way to do it then?
Dominic Jones
One really, really big bomb
Parker Sanders
This. One bomb to rule them all.
Eli Collins
Gulf War is underrated. Not even American.
But Saddam had the 4th largest army in the world when he invaded Kuwait. The US assembled the largest military coalition since WW2, all of the Western Alliance plus much of the Arab world against Saddam.
The bombing campaign crushed his airforce, the navy blockaded the Gulf, and the army swept in and defeated the Iraquis in a crushing pincer move.
It was a very tidy war with a low death count and a quick resolution.
Logan Mitchell
Are all these numbers in 2017 dollars?
Lincoln Young
This. People look at the gulf war as pathetic. It's literally the prime example of how a country wants a war to go. At the time the American public and the rest of the world were scared of the upcoming war. The outcome was a relieving fact. We literraly dominated the way ever army ever has wanted too.
