Collateral damage is any incidental and undesired death, injury or other damage inflicted, especially on civilians, as the result of an activity. Originally coined to describe military operations,[1] it is now also used in non-military contexts to refer to any unwanted fallout from an action.[2][3]
Since the development of precision guided munitions in the 1970s, military forces often claim to have gone to great lengths to minimize collateral damage.[4]
Critics of use of the term "collateral damage" see it as a euphemism that dehumanizes non-combatants killed or injured during combat, used to reduce the perceived culpability of military leadership in failing to prevent non-combatant casualties.[5][6][7][8]
Collateral damage does not include civilian casualties caused by military operations that are intended to terrorize or kill enemy civilians (e.g., the bombing of Chongqing during World War II).[9][10][11][12]