On Total War

Charlie's post here agrees with the notion that total war can be a positive force for a country. The principal reason he cites is that total war involves the entire population in the war effort and as such produces a more visceral connection to the war's effects among the people. This strikes me as a singularly circular argument if this connection is intended to prevent such wars from occurring in the first place.

The other problem with this argument is the conflation of a war's scale with its transparency. While wars have grown in scale over the course of history due to economic progress, population growth, and technological advancement, they have not become less opaque. The "fog of war" has always existed between the home front and the front line and has only been mitigated by advances in technology. We first saw the effects of communication advances on the "fog of war" in the Crimean war with the telegram, and they provoked considerable outcry despite the limited nature of the conflict.

In one respect, the scale of World War I hampered transparency. The national fervor wipped up by the conflict led to legislation like the American Sedition Act in 1918 that severely curtailed 'unpatriotic' speech or reporting on the war. There was also a clear divide in awareness between civilians and the military evidenced by post-war literature such as All Quiet on the Western Front and Mrs. Dalloway.

All of this refutes the supposed corollation between scale and awareness in war. Not only that, arguing for total war on the basis of its 'pedagogical' use strikes me as perverse, sickening, and disgusting. We shouldn't need bombed out cities and human carnage to proove to us that war is a terrible thing.