What’s the deadliest conflict of the 21st century so far? No, it’s not the Ukraine war, not by a long shot. According to
a new study by the Costs of War Project at the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs of Brown University, the wars and conflicts unleashed by the United States in response to the 9/11 terrorist attacks have led to the deaths of more than 4.5 million.
The deaths took place mainly in the war zones of Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Syria, and Yemen. But while other parties, states and sub-state actors have been involved, the latest study focuses on locales where “US counterterrorism has played a vital role in at the very least intensifying the violence,” wrote the study’s author Stephanie Savell, who is also co-director of the project.
The study describes the death toll as a “reasonable and conservative estimate”, which means it’s comparable to those in the US wars in Korea and Vietnam. “Some of these people were killed in the fighting, but far more, especially children, have been killed by the reverberating effects of war, such as the spread of disease,” it said. “These latter indirect deaths – estimated at 3.6-3.7 million – and related health problems have resulted from the
post-9/11 wars’ destruction of economies, public services, and the environment. Indirect deaths grow in scale over time.”
Their devastating effects continue today, especially given the severe sanctions imposed by Washington on Afghanistan and Syria.
The latest study follows from a previous one by the Costs of War Project in 2021 which tracks the number of people displaced from their homes as a result of the US’
post-9/11 wars.
They amounted to “at least 37 million people in and from Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, the Philippines, Libya and Syria”, the 2021 report said. “This number exceeds the total displaced by every war since 1900, except World War II.”
Tragically, in the past two decades, whole populations have had their lives upended in the most horrible way. The new report puts it starkly: “[The]
post-9/11 wars are implicated in many kinds of deaths. In a place like Afghanistan, the pressing question is whether any death can today be considered unrelated to war. Ultimately, the impacts of the ongoing violence are so vast and complex that they are unquantifiable. [Some] groups, particularly women and children, suffer the brunt of these ongoing impacts.”
