July 21, 2004
TABLE: WAR FATALITIES THROUGH THE AGES
|
Span of Observation/
Period of History/ Society |
Time Period |
Span (Yrs) |
Population Estimate |
Date of Popu- lation Estimate |
Number of Deaths per Year |
Deaths per 1,000 Population
per year |
|
Span of 91 to 100 Years 15th
Century Aztec, Central Mexico 19th Century France,
Europe 20th
Century Germany,
Europe Russia, Europe-Asia Sweden, Europe |
1419-1519 1800-1899 1900-1999 1900-1990 1900-1990 |
100 99 99 90 90 |
22,500,000 59,800,000 82,600,000 145,000,000 9,000,000 |
1519 2003 2003 2003 2003 |
56,250 41,860 132,160 217,500 B |
2.5 0.7 1.6 1.5 0.0 |
|
Span of Observation/
Period of History/ Society |
Time Period |
Span (Yrs) |
Population Estimate |
Date of Popu- lation Estimate |
Number of Deaths per Year |
Deaths per 1,000 Population
per year |
|
Span of 51-90 Years 20th Century Japan, Asia Worlda
Democide (Domestic and Genocide)a Battle deathsa
Totala USSRb,
Europe-Asia |
1900-1990 1900-1987 1900-1987 1900-1987 1917-1987 |
90 87 87 87 70 |
127,500,000 2,160,946,000 2,160,946,000 2,160,946,000 210,582,000 |
2003 1944 1944 1944 1952 |
38,250 1,944,851 432,189 2,377,040 884,440 |
0.3 0.9 0.2 1.1 4.2 |
|
Span of 26-50 Years 20th Century (Mae) Enga, New Guinea Tauade New Guinea Yugoslavia (Tito)b, Europe Gebusi, New Guinea Vietnamb, Asia China (PRC, Chiang Kai-shek)b |
1900-1950 1900-1946 1944-1987 1940-1982 1945-1987
1949-1987 |
50 46 43 42 42 38 |
164,750 11,000 20,775,200 490 39,952,380 772,719,300 |
1981 1991 1965 ? 1966 1968 |
527 35 24,930 1 39,952 927,263 |
3.2 3.2 1.2 2.0 1.0 1.2 |
|
Span of Observation/
Period of History/ Society |
Time Period |
Span (Yrs) |
Population Estimate |
Date of Popu- lation Estimate |
Number of Deaths per Year |
Deaths per 1,000 Population
per year |
|
Span of 10-25 Years 19th Century Tiwi, Australia 20th Century Auyana, New Guinea Boko Dani (?Boko), New Guinea China (KMT, Mao Tse-Tung)b, Asia Yanomama (Yanomamo), Brazil Telefolmin (Telefol), New Guinea |
1893-1903 1924-1949 1937-1962 1928-1949 1938-1958 1939-1950 |
10 25 25 21 20 11 |
1,000 6,500 15,000 685,374,000 9,500 5,400
|
1929 1975 1991 1938 ?1990's 1994
|
2 27 21 479,762 28 40 |
1.6 4.2 1.4 0.7 2.9 7.4
|
|
Span of Observation/
Period of History/ Society |
Time Period |
Span (Yrs) |
Population Estimate |
Date of Popu- lation Estimate |
Number of Deaths per Year |
Deaths per 1,000 Population
per year |
|
Span of 1-9 Years 19th Century Kato (Cahto), California Mohave, California-Arizona Fiji, Melanesia Mtetwa, South Africa Chippewa (Ojibwa), Minnesota 20th Century Manga (Buang), New Guinea Cambodiab,
Asia Dinka, Northeast Africa Dugum Dani, New Guinea |
1840's 1840's 1860's 1806-1814 1825-1832 1949-1956 1975-1979 1928 1961 |
9 9 9 8 7 7 4 1 1 |
533 4,000 148,000 ? 25,000
3,000 6,235,000 1,200,000 ? |
1849 1834 1865 1750 1986 1977 1956 |
8 9 1,288 B 188 14 508,776 11,640 B |
14.5 2.3 8.7 5.9 7.5 4.6 81.6 9.7 4.8 (8.5-12.3) |
Book
Critique: Lawrence Keeley,
War before Civilization B The Myth of the Peaceful Savage (1996)
The Table above is a re-working of Keeley=s data with the addition of some of Rummel=s data. It shows that no conclusion can be reached from Keeley=s data.
Keeley=s comparison of war fatalities in Atribal@ and Acivilized@ societies B as presented in his book (particularly Figure 6.1, p. 89, and Table 6.1, p. 195) B suffers from the following defects:
1. Lack of Definition: Though the book is entitled, War before Civilization B The Myth of the Peaceful Savage, Keeley does not define his criteria for considering a society either Asavage@ or Acivilized.@
2. Discrepancy: Three societies are omitted from the graph (Figure 6.1) which shows pictorially the data presented in Table 6.1 B the Manga Tribe, the Semai Tribe and Sweden.
3. Sample Bias: Keeley=s sample is biased:
Keely does not explain his choice of sample selection for his analysis of war fatalities. His analysis of war deaths in 25 primitive and 6 Acivilized@ societies, leaves out thousands of societies he could have selected for either category. For example:
For 1995, Papua New Guinea lists 817 living languages on its 600 islands.
In 2000, the U.S. Census Bureau identified 1,031 American Indian and Alaska Native tribes.
Africa and South America contain thousands of tribes from which Keeley chose two from Africa (the Dinkas and the Mtetwas) and one from South America (the Yanomamos), giving no reason for his selection.
b.
Tribes from New Guinea are over-represented. Eight of the 25 tribes worldwide which Keeley
has selected, are from New Guinea (including the part of the Island which in
1973, was renamed Irian Jaya). New
Guinea tribes thus make up a third of Keeley=s
sample.
c. Two of these New Guinea tribes are noted for their wars B the Auyana and the Mae Enga.
d. The one tribe from Brazil which Keeley has selected, is also known for its wars B the Yanomamo.
No Population Size: Keeley analyses 31 societies without giving their population size, except in one instance (the Mohave, p. 129).
No Date : For nine of the 31 societies Keeley analyzes, he does not give the date corresponding to the annual war death rate which he lists.
Different Time Spans: Keeley does not focus attention on the very different time spans from which his annual war death rates are calculated. He compares the Kato (Cahto) tribe (which in his sample has the highest annual war death rate B 14.5 per thousand per year for nine years B that is, 8 deaths per year, accumulating to a total of 72 deaths), with the Aztecs (who averaged an annual of 2.5 per thousand per year for 100 years B that is, 56,250 deaths per year, accumulating to a total of 5,625,000 deaths). Death rates for such differing time spans are hardly comparable.
No Mention of Historical Time Period: In his comparison, Keeley omits mention of the historical period he chose for his calculation of a society war death rate:
A comparison between the Aztecs in the 15th century and Sweden in the 20th, should at least note that had the Aztecs been allowed to develop instead of being decimated, they might have evolved into a much more peaceful society B as did the Vikings, those Scandinavian warriors who raided the coasts of Europe and the British Isles from the 9th to the 11th century, and then settled to become the peaceful Norwegian and Swedes.
France in the 19th century was a very different place than France in the 15th century where, according to a priest in 1527, Athe latrines resound with the cries of children who have been plunged into them.@ (Cited in deMause, Foundations of Psycho-history, p. 31). Keeley does not compare 15th century France with 15th century Aztecs, but rather 19th century France with 15th century Aztecs.
The Gebusi war fatality rate of 2 per thousand during the period 1940-1982, is taken from a time of known high aggressivity in the tribe=s history. In 1978, the tribe=s homicide rate was one of the highest in the world. By 1998, according to anthropologist Bruce Knauft, the rate had Aplummeted.@ Perhaps their war fatalities had plummeted as well.
No Mention of Lloyd deMause: Keeley makes no mention of the work of Lloyd deMause which relates child-rearing methods with the need for war in a society. DeMause has published his work since 1974, beginning with that year=s The History of Childhood (Jason Aronson, Northvale, New Jersey).
No Mention of R. J. Rummel: Keeley makes no mention of the work of R. J. Rummel which relates the level of democracy with the need for war in a society. Rummel published his work during the 1980's and 1990's, though his article in The Encyclopedia on Genocide was not published until 1999.
No Mention of Joseph Tainter: Keeley makes no mention of the evolution of societies. While Tainter published, AComplexity, Problem Solving, and Sustainable Societies,@ in 1996 (online), I would assume that he had published in scientific journals prior to that date. Tainter relates the returns on investments in complexity by a society with its vulnerability for collapse and wars.
No Differentiation between Battle Deaths, Democide and Genocide: Archeological data from simple societies may not allow differentiation between the various types of violent killings led by those in power B through wars causing battle deaths, through domestic democide (including politicide and mass murder), and through genocide. However, Keeley does not open the discussion on these different causes of death and how the proportion of each might differ as societies evolve from simple to complex. During the 20th century, for the world as a whole, battle deaths accounted for only 18 percent of all violent government killings B 41,954,023 out of a total of 236,439,080 deaths. (These are Rummel=s data, listed on page 16 of the present document, pro-rated for the whole 20th century; see also picture reproduced on p. 17 of the present document).
No Discussion of Overseas Wars by ACivilized States@: Between 1492, when Christopher Columbus first set foot on the ANew World,@ and 1892, when the U.S. Census Bureau listed fewer than 250,000 indigenous people surviving within the country=s claimed boundaries, a hemispheric population estimated to have been 125 million, was reduced by more than 90 percent. This genocide perpetrated by the Acivilized@ states of France (19th century France is included in Keeley=s sample as a civilized state), England, Spain, Portugal and others, is not considered in Keeley=s comparison, his data being restricted to a society=s own war deaths. Tribal conflict affects both adversaries. Overseas conquests by Acivilized@ states affect disproportionately one side.
Conclusion
Such dishonesty is not neutral. It has a present day political direction B contained in Keeley=s own words:
ACalculations show that the United States military would have had to kill nearly the whole population of South Vietnam during its nine-year involvement there, in addition to its internal homicide rate, to equal the homicide rate of the Gebusi [of New Guinea]. As their ethnographer Bruce Knauft notes, >Only the most extreme instance of modern mass slaughter would equal or surpass the Gebusi homicide rate over a period of several decades=@ (Underlining is Keeley=s) (Keeley pp. 29-30).
ATo equal the Gebusi annual homicide rate of 683 homicides per 100,000, the armed forces of the United States (with an average population of 200 million and a homicide rate of 10) would have had to kill 1,350,000 people each year. In nine years, this would amount to 12 million deaths. The population of South Vietnam in 1965 was less than 14 million@ (Keeley, footnote 10, pp 205-206).
So there. We are not so bad after all. Our policies in Vietnam were comparatively Acivilized.@ We are not like those Asavage@ Gebusis!
Noam Chomsky describes a different scene:
A[An estimated] 66,000 Viet Cong [were] killed between 1957 and 1961, that is, before the large-scale combat involvement of American air and helicopter forces; 89,000 between 1961 and April 1965. McNamara estimated another 60,000 of the >enemy= killed by mid-1966, overwhelmingly South Vietnamese and probably including many civilians@ (For Reasons of State, pp. 71-72).
A[An] estimated 10 million South Vietnamese... underwent >forced deportations= under intensive bombardment and ground sweeps after John F. Kennedy escalated the war in South Vietnam from large-scale state terror to outright aggression in 1961-1962@ (The New Military Humanism, p. 95).
AIn South Vietnam, perhaps half the population has been killed, maimed, or driven from their homes@ (For Reasons of State, p. 227).
A[The] invasion... left millions dead and [South Vietnam] in utter ruins, with unknown numbers still dying from unexploded ordinance and the massive chemical warfare attack against the South@ (Hegemony or Survival, pp. 100-101).
Notes
a These data which appear in the
Table, further highlighted by being written in italics, are for the world as
a whole and taken from Rummel, R. J., APower
kills, Absolute Power kills Absolutely.@
(See references).
b These data which appear in the Table, further highlighted by being written in bold type, are from Rummel, R. J., APower kills, Absolute Power kills Absolutely.@ (See references). They do not include battle deaths. They include only democide deaths B either domestic democide (including politicide and mass murder) or genocide. During the 20th century, in the world as a whole, battle deaths represented 18 percent of all violent killings led by those in power. These data are presented in the Table to give an idea of the range of magnitude of killings led by leaders in large, complex societies. (See discussion of this on page 7, point number 11).
References
Book Critiqued:
Keeley, Lawrence, War before Civilization B The Myth of the Peaceful Savage (Oxford, New York, N.Y.), 1996, particularly AAnnual Warfare Death Rates,@ Figure 6.1, p. 89 and Table 6.1, p. 195.
Conclusion
Chomsky, Noam
The
New Military Humanism -- Lessons from Kosovo (Common Courage, Monroe, ME), 1999.
For Reasons of State (The New Press, New York., N.Y.), 1970, 1971,1973/2003.
Hegemony or Survival B America=s Quest for Global Dominance (Metropolitan/Henry Holt, New York, N.Y.), 2003.
Data with a (b) and in bold face type:
Rummel, R. J., APower kills, Absolute Power kills Absolutely,@ in Israel Charny, Editor, Encyclopedia of Genocide, Volume 1, produced by the Institute on the Holocaust and Genocide, Jerusalem (ABC-CLIO, Santa Barbara, CA), 1999, pp. 23-34 (particularly page 24; and Table 3, p. 25, ATwentieth Century Democide.@
Economic Evolution of Societies:
Tainter, Joseph, AComplexity, Problem Solving, and Sustainable Societies,@ in Robert Costanza et al, Eds., Getting down to Earth B Practical Applications of Ecological Economics [online], (Island Press), 1996. <http://dieoff.com/page134.htm>. Cited in Heinberg, Richard, The Party=s Over B Oil, War and the Fate of Industrial Societies (New Society, Gabriola Island, B.C., Canada), 2003, p. 35.
Genocide of Native Americans:
Churchill, Ward, A Little Matter of Genocide B Holocaust and Denial in the Americas, 1492 to the Present (City Lights, San Francisco, CA), 1997, p. 1.
History of Childhood:
deMause, Lloyd, Foundations of Psycho-history (Creative Roots, P.O. Box 401, Planetarium Station, New York, N.Y.), 1982.
Population Numbers:
Auyana:
http://www.christusrex.org/www1/pater/ethno/Papu.html. (p. 8).
http://64.233.161.104/search?q=cache:w8OnJpbPAJcJ:
big.berkeley.edu/warposter.ppt+Ma...
Aztecs:
http://philtar.ucsm.ac.uk/encyclopedia/latam/aztec.html.
Columbia Encyclopedia (Columbia University/Gale Group, New York, N.Y.), 2000.
Boku:
http://www.christusrex.org/www1/pater/ethno/Papu.html. (p. 66).
Cahto:
http://www.slomotiondoomsday.com/waywardsun.html.
Four Directions Institute: http://www.fourdir.com/cahto.htm.
United States Government, Census Bureau, Census 2000, Special Tabulation, American Indian and Alaska Native Tribes in the United States: 2000. Internet release date: September 2002. Last revised date: June 30, 2004: Census 2000 PHC-T-18.
Cambodia:
Rummel, p. 25.
http://www.prb.org/datafind/prjrbdata/wcprbdata.asp?DW=DR&SL.
China (KMT and PRC):
Rummel, p. 25.
http://www.prb.org/datafind/prjrbdata/wcprbdata.asp?DW=DR&SL.
Chipppewa:
Columbia Encyclopedia (Columbia University/Gale Group, New York, N.Y.), 2000. (25,000 in 1750; 100,000 in 1990).
Dinka:
http://www.developments.org.uk/data/13/f_dinka.htm.
Dugum Dani:
A Papuan society in the Central Highlands of West New Guinea (what is now Irian Jaya).
Fiji:
http://www.library.uu.nl/wesp/populstat/Oceania/fijic.htm.
Columbia Encyclopedia (Columbia University/Gale Group, New York, N.Y.), 2000.
Gebusi:
http://lucy.ukc.ac.uk/Sonja/RF/Ukpr/NG16.htm.
http://www.ncpa.org/pi/crime/pd080399f.html.
Knauft, Bruce, Exchanging the Past B A Rainforest World of Before and After (University of Chicago, Chicago, IL), 2002.
http://www.press.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/hfs.cgi/00/14809.ctl.
Mae Enga:
http://www.christusrex.org/www1/pater/ethno/Papu.html.
http://64.233.161.104/search?q=cache:w8OnJpbPAJcJ:
big.berkeley.edu/warposter.ppt+Ma...
Manga Buang:
http://www.christusrex.org/www1/pater/ethno/Papu.html. (p. 14).
Mohave:
http://jeff.scott.tripod.com/mohave.html.
Columbia Encyclopedia (Columbia University/Gale Group, New York, N.Y.), 2000.
Keeley, p. 129.
Tauade:
http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=TTD.
http://www.christusrex.org/www1/pater/ethno/Papu.html. (p. 69).
Tiwi:
http://www.highbeam.com/library/doc0.asp?DOCID=
1G1:21167358&num=1&ctrlInfo=R...
http://www.abs.gov.au/Ausstats/abs@.nsf/Lookup/
7D4B1F697804E03BCA25699F0005D...
Telefolmin:
http://www.christusrex.org/www1/pater/ethno/Papu.html. (p. 70).
USSR:
Rummel, p. 25.
http://www.prb.org/datafind/prjrbdata/wcprbdata.asp?DW=DR&SL.
Vietnam:
Rummel p. 25.
http://www.prb.org/datafind/prjrbdata/wcprbdata.asp?DW=DR&SL.
Yanamamo:
http://www.tiscali.co.uk/reference/encyclopaedia
/hutchinson/m0023977.html.
http://64.233.161.104/search?q=cache:w8OnJpbPAJcJ:
big.berkeley.edu/warposter.ppt+Ma...
Columbia Encyclopedia (Columbia University/Gale Group, New York, N.Y.), 2000.
Yugoslavia:
Rummel, p. 25.
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