The Concept of Total Warfare :: Papers

The Concept of total Warfare developed in the early nineteenth century due to the economic development and political ideology. Factors that constitute total war 1) The percentage of the population that identifies itself with the war of its nation. i.e the citizens feeling about the conflict, a just war. 2) The percentage of the population and resources that participate in the conflict, in terms of industrial, agricultural and military terms. 3) The percentage of people affected by the conflict, in economic, social and military terms. 4) Common objective pursued by the conflict. Prior to the development of the modern state system, conflict was limited The war of total populations. In the age of total warfare, mass identify themselves fully with the nation's conflict Morally- the righteousness of the conflict in the interest of the nation Empirical - The character of conflict since the Napoleonic period. In the period of limited war, a state or a sovereign has the right to declare war in terms of ethics and law, against those who did not have the moral and legal right to take up arms. Yet one must keep in mind that all just war in the period of limited warfare was ambiguous and was discarded in the nineteenth century as leaders realized conflict to be a instrument of national/ dynastic policy. Conflict was often limited to outmaneuvering the enemy. Prior to the Napoleonic war it was common for a sovereign to use foreign troop's and mercenaries in conflict. e.g British use of German troops in the American war of independence. Even in the Napoleonic wars it was common to see foreign troops to used in conflict. In this period desertion was common not only among individual solders but of entire fighting formations. The French were the fist use conscription in 1793. To safeguard the newly created The First Republic, universal military service was used as a vehicle of nationalism. This was to be a character of modern war. French in the revolutionary war's Prussian and Italian wars of liberation and unifications War by total populations. Conflict in the twentieth century differed from that of the nineteenth century. National liberation and unification to national universalism, the increase in the percentage of the population participation in conflict was enlarged due to the economic changers of the previous decades. Not only did able bodied man had to participate in conflict women,children and the old now had to be used for the purpose of warfare.