The Threat List

Status:Conflict

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Middle East, South Asia and AfricaConflictNews-derivedmedium confidenceSourcing reviewed 2026-09-17

Human Cost of Post-9/11 US-Led Wars

Research cited by recent coverage attributes at least 4.5 million deaths and more than 38 million displaced people to post-9/11 wars.

Severity score

78.3

Critical · default weighting

Trajectory

Steady

How this is ranked

What this is

Retrospective reporting on 25 years of post-9/11 warfare cites estimates of at least 4.5 million deaths, including direct and indirect mortality, across multiple countries.

The same reporting estimates that more than 38 million people were displaced. These cumulative figures cover several distinct wars and rely on research estimates rather than a current casualty count.

Score breakdown

Each factor is a 0–100 relative severity index, not the raw figure or a specific time period. The actual counts and periods are listed under "Standardized Impact" on the right.

Loss of life

91

Direct and attributable mortality, normalised across annual and cumulative tolls.

Lives negatively impacted

83

People displaced, injured, food-insecure, exposed or otherwise materially harmed.

Financial cost

89

Direct damage, lost output and health-system spend attributable to the event.

Environmental impact

55

Emissions, habitat and biodiversity loss, contamination and irreversibility.

Trajectory

42

Whether the situation is escalating, and how much worse it is plausibly getting.

Recent coverage

Audit trail

Everything this entry has been through — when it was first searched for, queued, reviewed and approved, and how its figures and rank have moved since.

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