It’s a well-known trope in cinema: A car pulls up, a few somber-looking army officers emerge and…the family at the doorway immediately knows what’s up even before a word is said.
How do non-American nations do it, though? Same thing, or is it something much more casual, like a mere letter or phone call?
Especially, non-Westernized militaries (Africa, Asia, Middle East, Russia, etc.) Do they even bother with any sort of formal protocol?
I believe in Norway it is treated the same way as any unexpected death. Bringing the message is the responsibility of the police, who may pass the task on to the local parish minister or some other suitable person. (I have no statistics on how often it’s passed on and to whom, but sending a priest used to be the standard.)
Not quite what the OP is asking, but this reminds me of when they notified a family in Bangkok of the death of a young firefighter while doing his duty. The family was stunned, because he had told them he worked in an office somewhere. He was ashamed of being a “lowly” firefighter, because at least back then, the 1990s, firefighters were all taken from among rejected police applicants. I don’t know if they still recruit like that.
As late as Vietnam, telegrams were used to notify next of kin of military deaths here in the US, and local casualty lists were published in newspapers (still are).
Beyond “I Regret to Inform You” | Folklife Today (loc.gov)
Looks like letters and/or telegrams were used by the UK in WWI.
The Heritage of the Great War / First World War 1914 - 1918
It looks like they have a procedure pretty similar to the US one nowadays.
How the MoD breaks the news to families that their loved ones have died | Military | The Guardian
And it looks like the Russians just don’t really do it much at all.
What does Russia tell the mothers of soldiers killed in Ukraine? Not much. - The Washington Post
According to this eleven-year-old media story (in German), the German armed forces send an in-person visit by an officer plus a priest, sometimes accompanied by a psychologist. The soldiers nominate the person who would get that visit in advance, before going on a mission.
nm.
Perhaps not appropiate for GQ.
Is that the general Russian policy for this sort of scenario, though? Or specifically because Russian soldiers are officially not in Ukraine?
I don’t know. All I can find is Ukraine-related articles.
In WWII they sent letters.
How did the Soviets notify their soldiers’ families if they died during WWII? - Quora
All British military personnel nominate an Emergency Contact. This may be a next of kin but can be anyone the person chooses. There is a department in the MOD whose job is to send an officer to inform the EC. The point of a nominated EC is to ensure that the correct person is informed. Families today can get quite complicated.
After that, there is a whole procedure designed to help the bereaved.
In the trope I saw once, two somber-looking officers emerge and flip a coin to decide who gets to tell the wife the bad news. Is that a thing?
During a full hot war (like WWII, e.g.) were there really enough personnel to go around paying an in-person visit to the family of every dead soldier? That’s a lot of dead soldiers in times like those.
Historically in the UK (WW1, possibly WW2, I’m not sure when it was abandoned) it was the job of the local vicar to deliver the notification. This made them an incredibly feared figure in the community, as casualties started to mount.
In the US, families would receive a telegram. If it was bad news, Western Union would clip off a corner of the envelope so the recipient could prepare.
Do you have a cite for that? Just curious, I’ve never heard that.
In WW1 and 2 it was Telegrams or a letter… It was the telegram boy who scared them.
Relatives who were alive in the US during the war.
(Although, knowing my family, I could see them sitting around at a picnic in 1967, saying “what weird thing can we make up and tell this kid?”)
This tracks with what my grandmother (born in 1927) told me. It was known that businessmen routinely used telegrams, but for “regular folks” they were too expensive except for rare occasions–usually bad news.
I don’t think so (simply impracticable, given the numbers, though no doubt in some places it became known in time for the vicar to call on a known parishioner.
Telegram or form letter (I still have form letters from both wars, one telling my grandmother her oldest son was a POW in Turkey - in fact he had already died of disease, but communication with the Turks was limited - and one telling my mother that my father was missing in Crete - he later turned up as a POW).
Firstly, bravo OP. Or do you think non-Westerners are somehow less invested in family and basic human decency? 
In Pakistan, I happen to know. There is a point person at the Station HQ (meaning the unit’s home base) who liaises with volunteers from resident military families. One or more of them go to the house to inform the family if the resident is on base. If not, I believe the Station HQ nearest to the registered hometown of the deceased is told and they do the same thing. For killed. For wounded, missing, captured, they first call and then visit.
My mother was one of the family volunteers and she says it was difficult. I remember one death notification, where a neighbour of ours got KIA (his home was across the street) and my mother took me along, I was 9 and had played with his kids before.
Israel has a well-polished and practiced system, similar to the American one. The actual people doing the notification are, IIRC, volunteer reservists - former officers in their forties, usually, who live nearby.
The make an effort to get there as quickly as possible after the death is confirmed, even if that means showing up in the middle of the night. Israel is a small and very networked country, and the teams try very hard to get there before the families hear about the death from someone else.