Terms of War

Your guide to military euphemisms.

Illustration by Zohar Lazar

Asymmetrical Warfare When you’re the most fearsome military ever devised, but you still want to play the victim. “Bugsplat” The colloquial name for the Collateral Damage Estimation (CDE) tool, a US Defense Department software for calculating how many civilians are likely to be killed in an air strike, especially from a drone (see “Naugahyde Barcalounger”). […]

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