The United Kingdom Elections 2010

[Louis VI the Fat]

if a country is going to send people to die in foriegn countries it needs to properly equip them.

Sure. Absolutely.

Equally as important, a country that sends people to die in foreign countries needs to, well, accept that people die in a foreign country.

Operations in southern Afghanistan accounted for nearly £2.6bn, compared with £1.5bn last year. Most of the money was spent on providing tougher armoured vehicles for soldiers who face a growing threat of roadside bombs.

That's what? Ten extra lives saved? Five? £55 to £110 million per life then.

Harsh as it may sound, a government can put a price on a life. Not a monetary value, but an amount where it is no longer sensible to save this life. £100 million to save a single life, as above, is not sensible policy. Spending another £1.5 billion to save ten, or even fifty, lives more with some helicopters is decidedly unsensible too.
One faces two dilemmas:
- Saving a single soldier would come at the cost of a perverse amount of civilian lives that remain unsaved
- £1.1 billion, another £1.5 billion - how many more lives - and I'm just talking UK military - would be saved if this money was invested in developing Afghanistan?

The UK loses about 30 lives annually in Afghanistan. The costs to save one more grow exponentially. Where does one draw the line? At a billion quid for a single life, at the expense of five thousand British civilian lives?