NATO/With Or Without NATO - A Tale of Four Wars

With Or Without NATO - A Tale of Four Wars

by Tim Starr, March 15, 2023

NATO has fought very few wars in its 70+ years of existence, most of those in the past 30 years. Aside from Afghanistan, they have consisted of aerial bombardment in the Balkans and Libya. In the Yugoslavian breakup, NATO didn’t intervene in the Bosnian war until the very last month of the war, but NATO intervened much earlier in the Kosovo War. In the Libyan civil war, NATO intervened fairly early. However, NATO never intervened in the Syrian civil war, which also started around the same time. This gives us two sets of roughly comparable cases of wars with and without NATO intervention: Bosnia vs Kosovo, and Syria vs. Libya. We can then see if there seems to be any differences between these wars that show any correlation with NATO intervention.

In Bosnia, the population at the war’s start (1992) is estimated at 4,276,000 people. The most reliable estimate of the number of deaths from Serbia’s war on Bosnia seems to be 101,040, or 2,363/100,000 population. The war’s duration was 3 years, with NATO only intervening in the last month of the war. The war likely ended due to NATO intervention, so its death toll and duration would’ve probably been higher without NATO intervention.

In Kosovo, the starting population was about 2,100,000, and the estimated death toll was 13,535, or 640/100,000 population. The war’s duration was less than one year, but I will assume a one-year duration for the purpose of this comparison. The actual duration in months would be more favorable to the cases with NATO intervention. Thus, the Bosnian war’s death toll was almost four times as high as the Kosovo War, and three times longer.

In Syria, the starting population was about 21,320,000, and the estimated death toll so far is about 580,000, or 2,720/100,000 population. The war has lasted 14 years and counting thus far, and has not ended yet.

In Libya, the starting population was about 6,188,000, and the estimated death toll was 25,000, or 400/100,000 population. The war also lasted less than one year, but I’m using one year for purposes of this comparison. Again, this makes the comparison less favorable to the cases with NATO intervention than a more precise duration would be. Syrian civil war death toll has been 5.5 times greater than the Libyan civil war thus far, and it has been 14 times longer.

That makes the average death toll for Bosnia and Syria 2,661/100,000, with an average duration of 8.5 years, although duration will go up as the Syrian civil war continues. In contrast, for the cases with NATO intervention, the average death toll per population is 465/100,000, and the average duration is 1 year. That makes death toll per population from the cases without NATO intervention almost six times higher than the cases with NATO intervention. The average duration of the wars without NATO intervention are 8.5 times longer than the wars with NATO intervention.

Obviously, Afghanistan was different for many reasons too numerous to cover here, and no comparable cases without NATO intervention come to mind. Also, as with investments, past performance is no guarantee of future results. However, what this comparison shows is that as far as deaths per population and duration of war go, the cases above where NATO did intervene have clearly had better results than those without NATO intervention.