During recent small wars casualty aversion has been general.

In a great war, casualty aversion means to sacrifice few to not need to sacrifice many.
This means that often times commanders need to be reckless in their use of few in order to do their job right, to keep casualties relatively low.
Examples are the use of small and weak scouting teams (aggressive armoured reconnaissance, for example), the use of LRRP without a huge institution of heliborne extraction on call, the reckless push disregarding losses in the three digit range in order to seal the fate of an entire opposing peer force brigade.

It's a different military culture, one in which recklessness has a justified role.


This doesn't change that away from highly important actions, extreme caution and often even outright refusal of combat may be a very good idea.