Interestingly, Brett advances ‘mobilisation, production, genocide, propaganda’ as evidence of ‘totality’; interestingly, none of which are front line combat and actions – the actual ‘war’ bit of a nation at war.

I did say that in the comments, but in the post I’ve got ‘total methods’, which covers city bombing, gas, U-boats, atom bombs and what-have-you. :)

A very odd piece of late-war evidence is the 1945 gas detection patch on the Fleet Air Arm Museum’s Corsair – there’s no paperwork for why it was applied.

That’s interesting. Was it destined for the Pacific, and maybe the possibility that Japan would use gas against carriers? Or even as air defence? Or maybe that the Allies might need to use gas against Japan, and so Allied aircraft might become contaminated by flying over such areas?

I’m no expert, but I’m not aware of a meaningful definition of ‘total war’ that isn’t in some way partial, sometimes partisan. (The recent dubious pseudo-legal manoeuvring of the US state with ‘enemy combatant’ status, ‘torture’ and offshore imprisonment are good examples of this suspicion of expert witnesses.) IMHO logical view ‘total’ war is everything, and presumably no effort spared to achieve the aims of the state. Interestingly, Brett advances ‘mobilisation, production, genocide, propaganda’ as evidence of ‘totality’; interestingly, none of which are front line combat and actions – the actual ‘war’ bit of a nation at war.

The preparations for, stockpiling and defences against gas are evidence that all the major combatants expected that gas may well feature in W.W.II (Britain, America, Germany and Japan, among others, all prepared for gas attack. A very odd piece of late-war evidence is the 1945 gas detection patch on the Fleet Air Arm Museum’s Corsair – there’s no paperwork for why it was applied.)

While I agree that the opportunities for a decisive gas attack were indeed limited, that is not, from my understanding, why none of the major combatants actually used gas – most accounts for most discussions make it clear that reprisal in kind or the escalation into chemical warfare was regarded as not worth the risk. Extend the arguably redundant gas warfare into biological (Britain, the USA and Germany had some pretty scary stuff under preparation, and Japan in similar ways with use on prisoners for testing) and the argument of redundancy doesn’t stand. (Utility, manageability etc. however is a another kettle of poisonous fish.)

Or in short; for me a total war (rather than a state on total military footing – Brett’s points) is using all the available weapons to hand. The LDV in Britain were prepared to use very redundant pikes when they were backs to the wall; gas and chemical weaponry, stockpiled and available was not used; not even by Germany in 1945 when they had nothing to lose – ergo no total use of available military resources.

It also occurs to me that one can’t really talk of total war, but only of a state progressing to a total war footing – usually by stages. It’s rare that both combatants entirely match their opponent in these political and moral choices at each point in the combat.

Just some thoughts.

I vaguely remember giving that lecture, too! I agree that total war is an asymptotic state, but to say that total peace would be its opposite along a spectrum doesn’t help me visualise it. I like the idea of cold war and hot peace being somewhere in the middle though.

JDK:

On that basis would you say that WWII was less total than WWI? I’d say not, because other aspects were more total (mobilisation, production, genocide, propaganda).

Jonathan:

No worries. I was a bit terse with the definition anyway …

Brett: I hadn’t really thought about the blockades in that light, and you are, of course, correct about the early bombing raids. I was overreading the “e.g.” material. Sorry.

Jonathan said: “My problem with the list, by the way, is that the definition as written only covers WWII…”
In addition to Brett’s response to the ‘totality’ of the Great War, I don’t think W.W.II really qualifies as a total war, due to the deliberate withholding of certain weapons available – gas being the notable example. The shock effect of the atomic bombs and the nature of the genie unleashed tends to obscure the fact that none of the main combatants actually fought with all (a definition of total) of their weapons. There are other aspects of restraint shown, for whatever reasons, as well.

New Zealand’s abandonment of a offensive or point defensive bomber or fighter force is quite interesting in the context, maybe.

Just a thought.

As for ‘total war’, hmm . . . I was in charge of a course with that in the title for three years (incl a brief appearance from guest lecturer B. Holman), which oddly enough has made me less rather than more dogmatic on the topic. There are at least 3 different definitions in the course alone, plus there’s the one that John Bulkley uses in _Air Power and Total War_.

If TW works it’s as a theoretical state at one end of a spectrum, to which real life can only be asymptotic. And Total Peace works best as the point at the other end of the spectrum. ‘Cold war’ or ‘hot peace’ (how about the performance of neutrality by European countries in the world wars?) would be points in the middle of the spectrum.

As for non-cooperation and peaceful resistance, Gandhi’s example certainly influenced some pacifists in Britain in the 1930s. But have any countries really taken it on board as a defence policy? Costa Rica, maybe? It abolished its armed forces decades ago (though I think it has a paramilitary of some kind).

Well, this gets into areas where I’m no expert, but pacifism doesn’t necessarily translate to passivity. I’ve heard of governments training their citizens in peaceful collective resistance, for example, with the aim of making it uneconomical to conquer and occupy. That’s how you achieve “tolerated” I think.

Some system of collective security might be necessary: some varieties of pacifism make considerable allowance for self-defense, for example, and community policing as an extension of self-defense.

M