Comment by aguaviva

So if the WP article for the Soviet Afghan war quotes a broad range of estimates, ranging from 562k to 3M, with most in the range of 800k-1.2M -- how is it that you came to believe 2M is the "right" number?

Without going back to check the article -- I just want to know what's in your head right now -- can you actually tell me which estimate it was that gave you the 2M figure, and why you decided to go with that estimate and not the others? Did you ever get to the section in the article where it lays out all the conflicting estimates, in that big huge sprawling pile of footnotes?

Or was it more like -- you scanned the little Infobox at the top, saw 3 estimates in the range 1M-3M (including 2 conflicting estimates from the same author) and thought to yourself "Hmm, I know, I'll just average them!"

Something like that?

No judgements here. I just want to understand your thought process.