[ffgjgf1]

> It is only after the horrors of WW2 that the western world became fearful of casualties

That’s arguably not true at all. At the beginning of the war the allies were very reluctant to engage in major offensive operations (in hindsight it’s not inconceivable that the French could have won in 1939 while Hitler’s army was busy in Poland had they been more risk tolerant). The French especially were very fearful of casualties (in WW1 it lost a larger proportion of its male population than even Germany and France had relatively very low birth rates historically making them much harder to replace)

That makes sense considering that most of the people in charge were field officers in WW1 and knew the cost their decisions might have. Of course that changed over the next few years since it turned out that there were no other options.