Wiktionary
n. warfare where all of a country's available resources, military as well as civilian, are employed.
Wikipedia
Total war is warfare that includes any and all civilian-associated resources and infrastructure as legitimate military targets, mobilizes all of the resources of society to fight the war, and gives priority to warfare over non-combatant needs. The American-English Dictionary defines total war as "war that is unrestricted in terms of the weapons used, the territory or combatants involved, or the objectives pursued, especially one in which the laws of war are disregarded."
In the mid-19th century, scholars identified "total war" as a separate class of warfare. In a total war, to an extent inapplicable to less total conflicts, the differentiation between combatants and non-combatants diminishes and even sometimes vanishes entirely as opposing sides can consider nearly every human resource, even that of non-combatants, as nevertheless part of the war effort.
Actions that may characterize the post-19th century concept of total war include:
- Strategic bombing, as during World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War (Operations Rolling Thunder and Linebacker II)
- Blockade and sieging of population centers, as with the Siege of Leningrad and the Allied blockade of Germany during the First and Second World Wars
- Scorched earth policy, as with the March to the Sea during the American Civil War and the Japanese " Three Alls Policy" during the Second Sino-Japanese War
- Commerce raiding, tonnage war, and unrestricted submarine warfare, as with privateering, the German U-Boat campaigns of the First and Second World Wars, and the United States submarine campaign against Japan during World War II
- Collective punishment, pacification operations, and reprisals against populations deemed hostile, as with the execution and deportation of suspected Communards following the fall of the 1871 Paris Commune or German reprisal policy targeting resistance movements, insurgents, and Untermenschen such as in France (e.g. Maillé massacre) and Poland during World War II
- The use of civilians and prisoners of war as forced labor for military operations, as with Japan and Germany's massive use of forced laborers of other nations during World War II (see Slavery in Japan and Forced labor under German rule during World War II)
- Giving no quarter (i.e. take no prisoners), as with Hitler's Commando Order during World War II
Total War is a computer strategy game series developed by The Creative Assembly. Its games combine turn-based strategy and resource management, with real-time tactical control of battles. The first game of the series, Shogun: Total War was released in 2000. The most recent major game released was Total War: Warhammer on May 24, 2016. Since the series debuted, it has sold 20 million copies.
Total war is a military conflict of unlimited scope.
Total war may also refer to:
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Total War (series), a video game series developed by The Creative Assembly and now published by Sega
- Shogun: Total War
- Medieval: Total War
- Rome: Total War
- Medieval II: Total War
- Empire: Total War
- Napoleon: Total War
- Total War: Shogun 2
- Total War: Rome II
- Total War: Attila
- Total War: Warhammer
- Total War (band), a Swedish band previously known as War
- Total War: 2006, a 1999 book by Simon Pearson
- Total War speech, by Nazi German propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels on 18 February 1943
- "Total War" (song), a song by Boyd Rice
- Total War (novel), the first book in The Survivalist series by Jerry Ahern
- Total War (comic) title of first three issues of M.A.R.S. Patrol Total War
Usage examples of "total war".
Has anyone bothered yet to inform the Pakistan Army that this will force the possibility of total war?
Without the Library and the other Galactic Institutes, oxygen-breathing culture, dominant in the Five Galaxies, would long ago have fallen into total disarray -- probably ending in savage, total war.
Without the Library and the other Galactic Institutes, oxygen-breathing culture, dominant in the Five Galaxies, would long ago have fallen into total disarray-probably ending in savage, total war.
In any case, it was certainly the Germans who first mastered industrial warfare and taught it to the nations: total war -the advance marshalling of railroads, factories, modern communications, and the entire population of a land into one centrally controlled system for destroying its neighbors, should the need or impulse arise.
It had to be, since if Earth committed itself to total war production, they could outproduce us ten to one, easy.
The kind of relentless total war Jackson was waging was simply not something they could deal with.
He wanted, at this last moment, to prove how easy it was, by increasing his total war-score from three U-boats to four.
It was a total war, which these men were determined to win because to lose would mean total hell.
This is not yet the era of total war, and an army offers innumerable bolt holes for a coward (me) to avoid unpleasant dangers from strangers.