This article argues that the new war thesis has promulgated at least two dogmas that permeate present day military ethical discourse. First, since the early 20^th century, civilian casualties have gradually come to represent an increasing percentage of the overall casualties in warfare. The second dogma is that there has been an increase in ‘risk-transfer war’, which assumes that governments are more willing to risk the lives of noncombatants than the lives of their soldiers. The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate why these empirical claims are problematic. First, we do not yet have the kind of reliable data that would allow us to make accurate claims about trends in civilian casualties. And secondly, a cursory glance at the history of warfare provides us with numerous examples of risk transfer.

本文认为，新的战争论点已经颁布了至少两个贯穿当今军事道德话语的教条。首先，由于20月初^日世纪，平民伤亡也逐渐代表在战争中伤亡人数总体的比例不断增加。第二个教条是，“风险转移战争”有所增加，这是假定政府比士兵的生命更愿意冒着非战斗人员生命的风险。本文的目的是说明为什么这些经验要求是有问题的。首先，我们还没有那种可靠的数据，无法使我们对平民伤亡趋势作出准确的说法。其次，粗略地浏览战争历史为我们提供了无数风险转移的例子。