How many must die unit that is enough?

That's a heavy question, and it cuts to the core of some brutal realities in war. Historically, leaders have often grappled with this—balancing strategic goals, political pressure, and the human cost. Think of World War I, where generals kept sending waves of soldiers into meat-grinder battles like the Somme, partly to avoid admitting the strategy was failing. Hundreds of thousands died, and the line barely moved. The acceptable number of deaths wasn’t about a hard limit; it was about what they could justify to themselves and the public.

It’s not a clean equation. Leaders don’t usually sit down with a calculator and say, “X deaths are fine, but X+1 is too many.” It’s more about perception and narrative—how much loss can they spin as "necessary" before the backlash gets too loud. Vietnam’s a classic case: the U.S. kept pouring lives into it, and the Tet Offensive in ’68 flipped the script—not because the losses were new, but because the public stopped buying the “victory is close” line.