http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_military_casualties_of_war

Do I win?

I will accept very rough estimates for the various Native American conflicts, as well as other operations (Panama/Colombia/Indochina etc.) but not speculative deaths, please.

http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/RL32492.pdf

Study by the Congressional Research Service. Pretty much lists all american casualties in all wars. Have fun.

jmo, those are only on the American side I believe. I mean total casualties.

By speculative deaths, I mean no radiation/Agent Orange etc. that can't be proved to a reasonable degree.

Do i win?

Ah damn it... total casualties. You need to be more precise. :P

Sorry thread title wasn't clear. I mean foreigners killed by the U.S. as well as U.S. casualties.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_by_death_toll

Now do I win?

No that's too easy! For example World War II's stats will be the total Russians/Germans/French etc killed in the war. I would like to know the number of Americans killed, plus the number killed by Americans.

Thus attributing a death toll to the existence of America

I anxiously await the threads where we list the number of people killed by Communist China, the Soviet Union, the Khmer Rouge, Nazi Germany, Spanish conquistadors, the Mongol hoards, etc. etc.

Meanwhile, by all means, let's continue to try and tear down the best nation that has ever existed, for it's own citizens and for the promotion of peace and prosperity in the world.

Let's calculate the death toll of the existence of humanity.....

That would be every human that has ever lived! Damn humans.

Well dip, sure other killed loads of people aswell i totally agree. What i do reject to is that america is the best nation that ever existed. That is nationalistic bullshit. :D

Not nationalism. Patriotism.

And truth.

Oh, I forgot to exclude Jesus. Jesus made it out alive.

synapse - in a war like WW2, it would be very, very difficult to approximate that. You'd have to go through the divisional history of *every* military unit and look at confirmed kills.....but I'm not even sure if army units recorded their kills. For the Pacific its much easier because our land forces were on their own in their fights on the island (I don't believe we fought alongside the Aussies or Brits at any point...oh, and Kiwis too. Don't want to make them feel left out). For the European front, you'd have to see which German division each american unit was facing and find a record of *their* casualties during the days they were there. And for the joint bombing raids? No way to attribute those kills to either country in particular.

Well if we take the approximate casualties of WWII, subtract the Eastern Front and cross-reference that with the Pacific Theatre we might get some kind of rough number.

This isn't about debunking the US, this is just about establishing a number.

Is there some sort of objective standard for calculating "best nation ever"? Is "most enemy combatants killed" one of the criteria?

Let's start in chronological order, that should make things easier. Whats the estimate on the revolutionary war? About 70,000?

When are we starting? July 4th, 1776? If not, we could even start at King Phillip's War, or the smallpox epidemics caused by the settlers

FlemGem, I should think a good ratio of enemies killed to your own losses would be a mark of a particularly good military.

grking I'd like to avoid those, because they can't be attributed to the United States. The revolutionary war however, is certainly attributable to the US.

Yes, the Revolutionary War definitely involved the United States.

Do gang wars count? :P

Most people would date the Revolutionary War to the battle of Lexington and Concord, April 19, 1775.

How exactly are we counting casualties? Wikipedia, for example, lists 25k American dead, but only 8k in battle. British naval deaths are listed as 19k, but only 1200 in battle.

Don't confuse them with methodology.

I actually doubt even w the Native American genocide it would top the number of deaths the Japanese caused in WWII

Also likely the germans

But in this case America is involved in almost all deaths caused by Japan in WWII right? That's why this is kinda useless IMO.

*facepalm*

Steephie, read some history, please.

Oh wait, I thought we were talking active duty but that isn't specified anywhere so never mind.

What about the War of 1812? Doesn't that count?

By the way, can we estimate the number of deaths saved by American involvement? For example, if the U.S. doesn't join WW2, how many more would have died in Europe under Nazi rule? And of course, dropping the bombs in Japan may or may not have reduced the number of deaths by bringing that war to an earlier conclusion. If we don't count the lives saved, then these numbers don't have much meaning.

Do we get credit for avoiding the nuclear destruction of the world with that whole Cuban missile crisis? Perhaps if Russia had gotten those missles in there we wouldn't all be here today? Or maybe we would, but under a utopian communist state?

Of course without the ability to consult parallel universes, counting lives saved is nigh impossible. Thus this seems like a fruitless enterprise. Who knows what the world would have looked like had things gone different.

Huh...better than stickin' a needle in your eye....