Total war and Talk:Ground Equipment Facility J-33: Difference between pages

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:''This article is about total warfare. For the computer game series see [[Total War (game)]]''.

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[[Image:USPosterFoodIsAWeapon.jpg|thumb|right|250px|A [[United States|US]] poster produced during [[World War II]]]]

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'''Total war''' is a 20th century term to describe a [[war]] in which [[country|countries]] mobilise all of their political, social and economic resources as part of the war effort. A number of wars since the Napoleonic era have shown elements that are now reminiscent of total war, but only [[WWI]] and [[WWII]] could truly and undoubtedly be called 'total wars'. It is for this reason that total war itself was only recognized, and words such as '[[homefront]]' only developed, post-WWI.

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}} Add SFBAProject tag. [[User:ConradPino|Conrad T. Pino]] 07:08, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

==Multi-Function Station==

==Development of the concept of Total War==

MVAFS was a multi-function station: a [[Semi Automatic Ground Environment|SAGE]] long range radar site operated by the 666th Radar Squadron (host squadron)<ref name="ref_mil_museum">{{cite web

The concept of total war is often traced back to [[Carl von Clausewitz]], but Clausewitz was actually concerned with the related philosophical concept of [[absolute war]] (a war that when free from political and social constraints, is able to reach its natural extremes), which he held was impossible. The two terms [[absolute war]] and total war are often confused due to their similarities. However, the difference is that whilst [[absolute war]] is [[Carl Von Clausewitz|Clausewitz's]] theoretical construct relating to how war would be if it were free from the moderating effects of politics and society, the term 'total war' refers to when a state's war effort goes beyond its military assets, and involves the complete mobilisation of its political, social and economic systems/infrastructure/resources for the war effort. When a state's society and economy are mobilised in this way it is termed as being the '[[homefront]]'.

|url = http://www.militarymuseum.org/MillValleyAFS.html

|title = Mill Valley Air Force Station

|accessdate = 2007-07-18

|publisher = [[California State Military Museum]]

}}</ref>; an AN/FSS-7 [[SLBM]] detection radar site operated by Detachment 3 14th Missile Warning Squadron<ref name="ref_mil_museum" />; a [[Project Nike|Nike]] missile air defense control site (San Francisco Defense Area Site SF-90DC<ref name="ref_mil_museum" /><ref name="ref_missile_sites">{{cite web

|url = http://ed-thelen.org/loc-c.html#SF-90DC

|title = Locations of Former NIKE MISSILE SITES (text)

|accessdate = 2007-07-18

|publisher = Ed Thelen

}}</ref><ref>{{cite web

|url = http://www.nps.gov/goga/historyculture/cold-war.htm

|title = GGNRA - Cold War Era, 1952-1974

|accessdate = 2007-07-18

|publisher = [[National Park Service]]

}}</ref>) operated by the Army Air Defense Command Post for the 40th Artillery Brigade from 1959 until June 1971 and the 13th Air Defense Artillery Group from July 1971 to August 1974<ref name="ref_mil_museum" />; a [[Federal Aviation Administration]] (FAA) Joint Surveillance System (JSS) Facility J-33<ref name="ref_missile_sites" /><ref>{{cite web

|url = http://nas-architecture.faa.gov/nas/___location/location_data.cfm?fid=11342

|title = MILL VALLEY LRR SURVEILLANCE [QMV]

|accessdate = 2007-07-18

|publisher = [[Federal Aviation Administration]]

}}</ref>

. I served at MVAFS from 1972 to 1974 and personally witnessed these functions. More to follow later. [[User:ConradPino|Conrad T. Pino]] 08:42, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

==References==

There are several reasons for changing concept and recognition of total war in the nineteenth century. The main reason is [[Industrial Revolution|industrialisation]]. As states' natural and capital resources grew, war could be waged on a much greater scale and with much greater intensity thanks to the newfound scale and speed of production and supply lines. This in turn, would make the economy even more important, because obviously, if the combatant [[states]] were of similar military and economic strength, they would need to look towards outproducing and outlasting their enemy. For instance, when WWI developed into what was essentially a military stalemate (especially on the western front), and thereby developed into a [[attrition warfare|war of attrition]], the mobilisation of states' politics, societies and economies in order to outlast the enemy became the only way to grasp victory.

{{reflist}}

This mobilisation also led to the development of civilian infrastructure as legitimate military targets. Whilst cutting off enemy militaries' supply lines had long been part of war, industrialisation allowed attacks of this kind on a much larger scale. As the mobilisation of the economy made civilian infrastructure more and more important in regards to the war effort, and as [[industrialisation]] and the advancement of [[technology]] allowed military units to strike targets further and further away, such infrastructure (such as [[factory|factories]]) became legitimate military targets. It follows as well that the factory's workers would also be targets.

There is no single definition of total war, except that there is general agreement among historians that the [[First World War]] and [[Second World War]] were both examples. A large number of historians consider the [[American Civil War]] to be the earliest example{{ref|civilwar}}, some consider the wars of German unification the first, and others pick other starting points. Since the concept emerged gradually, however, there is no one correct answer.

Thus, definitions do vary, but most hold to the spirit offered by Roger Chickering's definition ''Total War: The German and American Experiences, 1871-1914'':"Total war is distinguished by its unprecedented intensity and extent. Theaters of operations span the globe; the scale of battle is practically limitless. Total war is fought heedless of the restraints of morality, custom, or international law, for the combatants are inspired by hatreds born of modern ideologies. Total war requires the mobilization not only of armed forces but also of whole populations. The most crucial determinant of total war is the widespread, indiscriminate, and deliberate inclusion of civilians as legitimate military targets. "

==Consequences of Total War==

The most identifiable consequence of total war in modern times has been the inclusion of [[civilian|civilians]] and civilian infrastructure as targets in destroying a country's ability to engage in war. The targeting of civilians developed from two distinct [[theory|theories]]. The first theory was that if enough civilians were killed, factories could not function. The second theory was that if civilians were killed, the country would be so demoralized that it would have no ability to wage further war.

Total war also resulted in the mobilization of the [[home front]]. [[Propaganda]] became a required component of total war in order to boost production and maintain [[morale]]. [[Rationing]] took place to provide more material for waging war.

Another consequence was the expansion of the peace time [[military]]. A [[navy]] could not be built overnight, and it had to be large enough to fight any potential enemy. This led to the [[dreadnought]] arms race before [[World War I]]. To justify the huge expenditure, populations had to become accustomed to thinking of the most likely potential enemy, as an enemy, which helped to foster war hysteria and [[jingoism]]. Large standing [[army|armies]] for countries with land borders close to a potential enemy and strong navies for maritime powers were the only way to prevent defeat before the economy could be mobilized.

==Total war and its precursors==

=== The French Revolution ===

The [[French Revolution]] has introduced some of the concepts of total war. The fledgling republic found itself threatened by a powerful coalition of European nations. The only solution, in the eyes of the [[Jacobin]] government was to pour the nation's entire resources into an unprecedented war effort - this was the advent of the [[levée en masse]]. The following decree of the [[National Convention]] on [[August 23]], [[1794]] clearly demonstrates the enormity of the French war effort:

"From this moment until such time as its enemies shall have been driven from the soil of the Republic all Frenchmen are in permanent requisition for the services of the armies. The young men shall fight; the married men shall forge arms and transport provisions; the women shall make tents and clothes and shall serve in the hospitals; the children shall turn linen into lint; the old men shall betake themselves to the public squares in order to arouse the courage of the warriors and preach hatred of kings and the unity of the Republic."

=== American Civil War ===

US Army General [[William Tecumseh Sherman]]'s '[[Sherman's March to the Sea|March to the Sea]]' during the '''[[American Civil War]]''' destroyed the resources required for [[Confederate States of America|the South]] to make war. He is considered one of the first military commanders to deliberately and consciously use total war as a military tactic.

=== American Indian Wars ===

Some historians consider the various American [[Indian War]]s fought after the civil war to be influenced by the 'Total War' style behavior of the Civil War leaders. The theory goes that the Union officers who devastated the South brought the same ideas to the West. This is not to say that the American populace was committed totally to the Indian war effort, but that the Indians' civilian population was considered a part of the enemy 'war machine' and therefore a legitimate target of Union soldiers.

In particular the destruction of the [[American Bison]] was an attempt to destroy the food supply of many [[Plains Indian]]s such as the [[Sioux]] and thus destroy their way of life. There were also wholesale slaughters of civilian populations such as at [[Wounded Knee]].

On the other hand slaughtering of Indian civilians had been going on a long time before the civil war, as far back as the [[Pequot War]], [[King Philip's War]], the [[DeSoto]] expedition, and [[Christopher Columbus]].

=== Taiping Civil War ===

During the '''[[Taiping Rebellion]]''' civil war ([[1850]]-[[1864]]) that followed the seccession of the Tàipíng Tiānguó (太平天國, Wade-Giles T'ai-p'ing t'ien-kuo) (Heavenly Kingdom of Perfect Peace) from the [[Qing dynasty|Qing empire]] the first instance of total war in modern China can be seen. Almost every citizen of the Tàipíng Tiānguó was given military training and conscripted into the army to fight against the imperial forces.

During this conflict both sides tried to deprive each other of the resources to continue the war and it became standard practice to destroy agricultural areas, butcher the population of cities and in general exact a brutal price from captured enemy lands in order to drastically weaken the opposition's war effort. This war truly was total in that civilians on both sides participated to a significant extent in the war effort and in that armies on both sides waged war on the civilian population as well as military forces. In total between 20 and 50 million died in the conflict making it bloodier than the [[First World War]] and possibly bloodier than the [[Second World War]] as well if the upper end figures are accurate.

=== World War I ===

Almost the whole of [[Europe]] mobilized to conduct '''[[World War I]]'''. Young men were removed from production jobs, and were replaced by women. Rationing occurred on the home fronts.

One of the features of Total War in Britain was the use of propaganda posters to divert all attention to the War on the home front. Posters were used to influence people's decision on what to eat, what occupations to take (Women were used as nurses and in munitions factories), and to change the attitude of support towards the war effort.

After the failure of the [[Battle of Neuve Chapelle]], the large British offensive in March [[1915]], the British Commander-in-Chief [[Field Marshal]] Sir [[John Denton Pinkstone French, 1st Earl of Ypres|John French]] claimed that it failed due to a lack of shells. This led to the [[Shell Crisis of 1915]] which brought down the [[Liberal Party (UK)|Liberal]] British government under the [[Prime Minister|Premiership]] of [[Henry Asquith]]. He formed a new coalition government dominated by Liberals and appointed [[Lloyd George]] as [[Minister of Munitions]]. It was a recognition that the whole economy would have to be geared for war if the Allies were to prevail on the Western Front.

As young men left the farms for the front, domestic food production in Britain and Germany fell. In Britain the response was to import more food, which was done despite the German introduction of unrestricted submarine warfare, and to introduce rationing. The Royal Navy's blockade of German ports prevented Germany from importing food, and the Germans failed to introduce food rationing. German capitulation was hastened in 1918 by the worsening food crises in Germany.

=== World War II ===

==== The United Kingdom ====

Before the onset of the [[Second World War]], the [[United Kingdom]] drew on its [[World War I|First World War]] experience to prepare legislation that would allow immediate mobilization of the economy for war, should future hostilities break out.

Rationing of most goods and services was introduced, not only for consumers but also for manufacturers. This meant that factories manufacturing products that were irrelevant to the war effort had more appropriate tasks imposed. All artificial light was subject to legal [[Blackout (wartime)|Blackout]]s.

Not only were men and women conscripted into the armed forces from the beginning of the war (something which had not happened until the middle of World War I), but women were also conscripted as [[Land Girls]] to aid farmers and the [[Bevin Boys]] were conscripted to work down the coal mines.

Huge casualties were expected in bombing raids, so children were evacuated from London and other cities en masse to the countryside for compulsory [[Billet|billeting]] in households. In the long term this was one of the most profound and longer lasting social consequences of the whole war for Britain. This is because it mixed up children with the adults of other classes. Not only did the middle and upper classes become familiar with the urban squalor suffered by working class children from the slums, but the children got a chance to see animals and the countryside for the first time and experience how the other half lived. Many went back to the cities with their social horizons broadened.

The use of statistical analysis, by a branch of science which has become known as [[Operational Research]] to influence military tactics was a departure from anything previously attempted. It was a very powerful tool but it further dehumanised war particularly when it suggested strategies which were counter intuitive. Examples where statistical analysis directly influenced tactics was the work done by [[Patrick Blackett|Patrick Blackett's]] team on the optimum size and speed of convoys and the introduction of [[bomber stream]]s by the [[Royal Air Force|RAF]] to counter the night fighter defences of the [[Kammhuber Line]].

==== Germany ====

In contrast [[Germany]] started the war under the concept of [[Blitzkrieg]]. It did not accept that it was in a total war until [[Joseph Goebbels]]' [[Sportpalast speech]] of [[18 February]] [[1943]]. For example, women were not conscripted into the armed forces.

The commitment to the doctrine of the short war was a continuing handicap for the Germans; neither plans nor state of mind were adjusted to the idea of a long war until it was too late to help win the war. Germany's armament minister [[Albert Speer]], who assumed office in early 1942, rationalized German war production and eliminated the worst inefficiencies. Under his direction a threefold increase in armament production occurred and did not reach its peak until late 1944. To do this during the damage caused by the growing strategic Allied bomber offensive, is an indication of the degree of industrial under-mobilization in the earlier years. It was because the German economy through most of the war was substantially undermobilized that it was resilient under air attack. Civilian consumption was high during the early years of the war and inventories both in industry and in consumers' possession were high. These helped cushion the economy from the effects of bombing. Plant and machinery were plentiful and incompletely used, thus it was comparatively easy to substitute unused or partly used machinery for that which was destroyed. Foreign labour (much of it slave labour) was used to augmented German industrial labour which was under pressure by conscription into the ''[[Wehrmacht]]'' (Armed Forces).

====Soviet Union====

The Soviet Union was a [[planned economy|command economy]] which already had an economic and legal system allowing the economy and society to be redirected into fighting a total war. The transportation of factories and whole labour forces east of the [[Urals]] as the Germans advanced across the USSR in 1941 was an impressive feat of planning. Only those factories which were useful for war production were moved due to the total war commitment of the Soviet government.

During the [[siege of Leningrad]], newly-built [[T-34 tank]]s were driven - unpainted due to a paint shortage - from the factory floor straight to the front. This came to symbolise the USSR's commitment to the [[Great Patriotic War]] and demonstrated the government's total war policy.

To encourage the Russian people to work harder, the [[communist]] government encouraged the people's love of the [[Motherland]] and even allowed the reopening of [[Russian Orthodox Church]]es as it was thought this would help the war effort.

The ruthless movement of national groupings like the [[Volga German]] and later the [[Crimean Tatars]] (who Stalin thought might be sympathetic to the Germans) was a development of the conventional [[scorched earth]] policy. This was a more extreme form of [[internment]], implemented by both the UK government (for [[Axis Powers|Axis]] aliens and British [[Nazi]] sympathisers), and the US government (for [[Japanese internment in the United States]]).

==== Descent into barbarism ====

The suspension of many of the [[laws of war]] on the [[Eastern Front (WWII)|Eastern Front]] during World War II coupled with an escalation in criminal actions caused human misery on a scale never seen before. Nazi Germany engaged in wholesale slaughter of three million Soviet POWs, and over eleven million innocent civilians, including the genocide of the Jews of Europe that killed approximately six million people (see [[Holocaust]]). Many actions which violated the laws of war were initiated or at least condoned by the authorities on both sides. They argued that in such a clash of ideology any methods which achieved victory over the enemy were justified. <!--sources?-->

The violation of many of the laws of war in the [[Pacific War|Pacific and Asian Theatres]] of World War II particularly in the Sino-Japanese conflict, [[Japanese war crimes|caused wide scale human misery]]. Approximately ten million Chinese civilians were killed. Many actions which ignored the laws of war were initiated or at least condoned by the Japanese authorities.

==== Strategic bombing ====

Britain and Germany made a distinct attempt to destroy the other's ability to produce war materials. They did this by the use of [[strategic bombing]] campaigns upon each others' cities. When the United States entered the war, it executed similar campaigns against both Germany and Japan.

==== Unconditional Surrender ====

After the United States entered World War II, President [[Franklin D. Roosevelt]] declared at [[Casablanca conference]] to the other Allies and the press that [[unconditional surrender]] was the objective of the war against the Axis Powers of Germany, Italy, and Japan. Prior to this declaration, the individual regimes of the Axis Powers could have negotiated an armistice similar to that at the end of World War I and then a conditional surrender when they perceived that the war was lost. The allied war aim of unconditional surrender inevitably increased the determination and the ferocity of the defence of the Axis powers when they knew the war was lost.

==Post World War II==

There has been a cessation of large decisive wars between industrialized nations since the end of [[World War II]], because their ability to wage war on each other had become so destructive that the potential damage more than offset the advantages of any victory. With nuclear weapons, the fighting of a war became something that instead of taking years, and the full mobilisation of a country's resources such as in World War II, would instead take hours and was developed and maintained with relatively modest peace time defence budgets. By the end of the [[1950s]], the super-power rivalry resulted in the development of [[Mutually Assured Destruction|MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction)]] in which a war could destroy civilisation and would result in hundreds of millions of deaths in a world where, in the words of [[Edward Heath]], "''The dying will envy the dead''".

As the tensions between industrialized nations have diminished, European continental powers have for the first time in 200 years started to question if conscription is still necessary. Many are moving back to the pre-Napoleonic ideas of having small professional armies. This is something which despite the experiences of the first and second world wars is a model which the English speaking nations had never abandoned during peace time, probably because they have never had a common border with a potential enemy with a large standing army. In Admiral [[John Jervis, 1st Earl of St Vincent|Jervis]]'s famous phrase, "''I do not say, my Lords, that the French will not come. I say only they will not come by sea''".

The cessation of total war has not led to the end of war involving industrial nations, but a shift back to the limited wars of the type fought between the competing European powers for much of the [[19th century]] that could be summed up by the phrase [[The Great Game]]. During the [[Cold War]], wars between industrialized nations were fought by [[proxy war|proxy]] over national [[prestige (sociology)|prestige]], tactical strategic advantage or [[colonial]] and [[neocolonialism|neocolonial]] resources. Examples include the [[Korean War]], the [[Vietnam War]] and the [[Soviet invasion of Afghanistan]]. Since the end of the Cold War, some industrialised countries have been involved in a number of small wars with strictly limited strategic objectives which have motives closer to those of the colonial wars of the 19th century than those of total war; examples include the [[Australia]]n-led [[UN]] intervention in [[East Timor]], the [[NATO]] intervention in [[Kosovo]], the internal Russian conflict with [[Chechnya]], and the [[United States|American]]-led coalitions which invaded [[U.S. invasion of Afghanistan|Afghanistan]] and twice fought the [[Iraq]]i regime of [[Saddam Hussein]].

==Quotes==

* "...There is another more obvious difference from 1914. The whole of the warring nations are engaged, not only soldiers, but the entire population, men, women and children. The fronts are everywhere. The trenches are dug in the towns and streets. Every village is fortified. Every road is barred. The front line runs through the factories. The workmen are soldiers with different weapons but the same courage...". ''[[Winston Churchill]] on the Radio, [[June 18]] ; and [[House of Commons]] [[20 August]], [[1940]].[http://www.winstonchurchill.org/i4a/pages/index.cfm?pageid=420]''

* "I ask you: Do you want total war? If necessary, do you want a war more total and radical than anything that we can even imagine today?" ''Nazi propaganda minister [[Joseph Goebbels]] [[18 February]] [[1943]] in his [[Sportpalast speech]].''

* "Actually [[Bombing of Dresden in World War II|Dresden]] was a mass of munitions works, an intact government centre, and a key transportation point to the East. It is now none of these things." ''Written by Air Marshal Harris in a memo to the Air Ministry on [[29 March]] [[1945]].''

* ''Chorus from a popular WWII British song'': +

::It's a ticklish sort of job making a thing for a thing-ummy-bob

::Especially when you don't know what it's for

::But it's the girl that makes the thing that drills the hole

::that holds the spring that works the thing-ummy-bob

::that makes the engines roar.

::And it's the girl that makes the thing that holds the oil

::that oils the ring that works the thing-ummy-bob

::that's going to win the war.

==See also==

* [[Conscription]]

* [[Levée en masse]]

[[Category:War]]

[[Category:Military doctrines]]

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