A radio report yesterday said that so far in the recent fighting in Ukraine, there have been 43,000 casualties, [....] all in spite of the so-called cease fire.
When 43,000 people are killed in combat, it's usually called "war."
Indeed. Approximately that number of U.S. military
killed was an impetus for Lyndon Johnson to decine to run for a 2nd term as U.S. president (1968), and later for his immediate successor, President Nixon, to withdraw the U.S. military forces & diplomatic corps from what had been conceded for years to be a "
war" in Indochina.[†]
But
not all "
casualties" are people "
killed". It's a
military term that takes a coldly numerical perspective, counting people who can no longer participate in the military force. So it counts not only people "killed", but also those who are disabled as
injured,
wounded, or
ill, who have been
captured (and remain so), or are unaccounted for, being
missing.
The "casualties" might also include known or suspected
deserters.
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Note †: More commonly--but less accurately--called the "Vietnam
War". U.S. Dept. of Defense and U.S. Veterans' Administration in 2010 issued what might be called a final accounting:
58,220 U.S.
dead plus 303,644 U.S. wounded: that's 361,864 "
casualties" before adding in those still
missing after all these years. Of course, considering the source(s), that is an
Americentric accounting.