(I didn't expect you to be in the comments. If I had known, I would have used the full quote, not truncated it with yadda yadda.)
If the metric by which we measure how good a country is at war is preventing further conflict, Israel still passes handily. Consider the combatants in the six day war. How many of them still pose a threat to Is…
(I didn't expect you to be in the comments. If I had known, I would have used the full quote, not truncated it with yadda yadda.)
If the metric by which we measure how good a country is at war is preventing further conflict, Israel still passes handily. Consider the combatants in the six day war. How many of them still pose a threat to Israel?
But, note, this is a different metric than what was discussed before. I don't think anyone disagrees that Israel has the capability to reduce Gaza to a state where it could pose no threat. It chooses not to because it has prioritized protecting civilian life. I'd rather a country judge their war prowess by minimizing civilian casualties than primarily by preventing future conflict, as it was for most of history (see WWII: Dresden, London, Tokyo, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, etc.). As to my point, I don't think anyone would disagree that minimizing your own casualties is a sign of being good at war.
Always fair to ask for a source, here's where I got the 9:1 figure:
I could certainly see an argument for this source being biased, but it's about what I would expect.
For the ratio in Gaza, deaths are sitting at about 60k (I see no reason to think that Gaza (read: Hamas) is undercounting deaths), and estimates for Hamas deaths is about 20k. But even if we double the ratio, 4:1 is still well under what we would expect.
As for your second comment, the 9:1 ratio is for urban conflict. Most of the conflict on Oct. 7 wasn't in urban environments.
(I didn't expect you to be in the comments. If I had known, I would have used the full quote, not truncated it with yadda yadda.)
If the metric by which we measure how good a country is at war is preventing further conflict, Israel still passes handily. Consider the combatants in the six day war. How many of them still pose a threat to Israel?
But, note, this is a different metric than what was discussed before. I don't think anyone disagrees that Israel has the capability to reduce Gaza to a state where it could pose no threat. It chooses not to because it has prioritized protecting civilian life. I'd rather a country judge their war prowess by minimizing civilian casualties than primarily by preventing future conflict, as it was for most of history (see WWII: Dresden, London, Tokyo, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, etc.). As to my point, I don't think anyone would disagree that minimizing your own casualties is a sign of being good at war.
Always fair to ask for a source, here's where I got the 9:1 figure:
https://civiliansinconflict.org/our-work/conflict-trends/urban-warfare/
I could certainly see an argument for this source being biased, but it's about what I would expect.
For the ratio in Gaza, deaths are sitting at about 60k (I see no reason to think that Gaza (read: Hamas) is undercounting deaths), and estimates for Hamas deaths is about 20k. But even if we double the ratio, 4:1 is still well under what we would expect.
As for your second comment, the 9:1 ratio is for urban conflict. Most of the conflict on Oct. 7 wasn't in urban environments.