The recent rescue of a US airman from remote Iranian territory obscures a deeper truth. As contested casualty figures emerge, Kandida Purnell argues that what we see, count, and mourn in war is never neutral. Rather, it is carefully governed through a longstanding necropolitical logic that shapes public perception, and sustains conflict

On Good Friday, a US fighter jet was shot down over Iran. The two pilots were forced to eject. Over Easter weekend, the race to rescue one of them dominated headlines. Just hours earlier, Novara Media had reported that the US was ‘hiding the true extent’ of its military casualties in the Iran war. The problem, it claimed, was one of transparency.

But these are not separate issues. They are two sides of the same phenomenon, and reveal the selective visibility of war. The intense focus on an individual missing service member sits alongside the obscuring of broader patterns of injury and death. It reveals how attention is directed, managed, and contained. What we are witnessing, then, is not an anomaly, but the continuation of a long-standing necropolitical logic. Indeed, it is one I identified, analysed, and warned about, years ago.

Historically, the US has carefully managed the visibility of its war injured and dead, stealthily moving them out of public view

My 2018 article, Grieving, Valuing, and Viewing Differently: The Global War on Terror’s American Toll, demonstrates how the US has historically managed the visibility of its war injured and dead. My research focuses on Vietnam to Global War on Terror-era policy and practice, including the 'Dover Ban'. It illustrates how consecutive US administrations on both sides of the aisle worked to move dead and suffering soldiers out of public view. This is not because they were unimportant. It is because casualties of war were politically sensitive; they threatened the government's biopolitical facade of care and protection. Ultimately, these casualties threatened America's ability to wage long-term wars. 

Visibility is not accidental 

This is the key insight: visibility is not accidental — it is governed. 

The Novara article suggests that US casualty figures are being obscured or selectively reported. On Saturday 4 April, the BBC reported that Iran's capture of the missing airman would have led to America’s ‘profound political embarrassment’. My work helps us understand why. As I have argued, an intensely militarised political economy treats soldiers as a 'precious resource', yet simultaneously renders them invisible in death. The system manages their suffering through practices that limit public exposure and political accountability. 

What we are seeing today is not just the undercounting of casualties. It is the continuation of what I identify as a broader system of necropolitical statecraft that regulates how we see, count, and feel death.

The issue is not only whether governments record deaths, but how they frame, delay, categorise, or exclude them altogether

My research also highlights that the politics of counting is inseparable from the politics of valuing. The issue is not only whether governments record deaths, but how they frame, delay, categorise, or exclude them altogether. Moreover, and as Thomas Gregory has recently pointed out in the case of civilian casualties produced by American wars, counting becomes a technique of governance: it shapes public perception, moderates dissent, and ultimately enables the continuation of war. 

Counting, valuing, and governing death 

This is where my continued emphasis on contested grievability becomes especially relevant. If some lives (and deaths) are more grievable than others, the act of counting is never neutral. It is a process of differentiation. Some deaths are visible, others are obscured. Some we mourn publicly, others we quietly absorb into statistical ambiguity. 

The Novara report sits squarely within this logic. The discrepancy between official and estimated casualty figures is not simply a data problem; it is a political one. It reflects ongoing struggles over who has the authority to count, whose counts are recognised, and what those numbers are allowed to mean.

If some lives (and deaths) are more 'grievable' than others, the act of counting is never neutral

Importantly, attention to grievability also reminds us that these processes are never uncontested. Even in the face of state efforts to suppress visibility, alternative forms of counting, witnessing, and memorialisation emerge. Families, journalists, and researchers continue to demand recognition — to insist that these lives are not reducible to managed figures or bureaucratic categories. 

What deaths are allowed to appear? 

That tension is still present now, even as President Trump reassures Americans that although the rescued airman ‘sustained injuries’, 'he will be just fine'. 

So, rather than asking whether the US military is hiding casualties, a more productive question is this: What kinds of deaths are allowed to appear, and under what conditions? 

Until we confront that question, debates about transparency will remain superficial. Because the issue is not simply that the numbers are wrong. It is that numbers themselves are part of the machinery through which war is made acceptable.