The other way that patterns of casualties have changed ovr the past century is that, while the number of soldiers killed has tended to go down, the proportion of civilians and noncombatants of all ages killed has skyrocketed.

This site gives the nightmare statistics. If you are unfortunate enough to be in a country where a war is being conducted,on the whole it's safer to be in the army by a long way. Even if your side is losing. The civilians always die in vastly greater numbers.

My impression is that the presumption is that if it is necessary to kill large numbers of local civilians in order to reduce military casualties, that is seen as the right thing to do, at command level. I've heard of many ordinary soldiers who wouldn't necessarily see it that way.