[1] In combat situations, leaders have to often choose between options where no one solution is perfect and all choices will lead to casualties or other costs to their own troops.
In many military operations, the speed of advancement is more important than the safety of troops.
[3] On a larger strategic level, there is a limit to how many casualties a nation's military or the public are willing to withstand when they go to war.
For example, there is an ongoing debate on how the conceptions of acceptable losses affect how the United States conducts its military operations.
[6] The euphemism is related to the concept of acceptable risk, which is used in many areas such as medicine and politics, to describe a situation where a course of action is taken because the expected benefits outweigh the potential hazards.