The morality of city bombing vs. regular warfare in WWII

[Razgovory]

Curious where you get the numbers.  I do recall reading accidentally declassified military stuff that said they believed they could directly cause about 40% causalities in the Soviet Union with nukes.

[Ideologue]

Books on the Cold War.  I own a few, and I've read a few more.  Long time ago.  The only one I recall is SIOP (a history of the SIOPs and their predecessors), by somebody.

Thing is, if you were really after full extermination, the respective arsenals could get pretty far, but wiping out the entire population of the U.S., Europe, and the U.S.S.R., and effectively rendering their width and breadth uninhabitable, no.  Also, targeting weights were shifted mightily toward opponents' nuclear weapons, which usually were in less populated zones; redundant coverage of these targets reduced the number of weapons targeting cities, and destruction of nuclear weapons in counterforce strikes, of course, reduces the overall number of nuclear weapons that may have been used.  Finally, it was expected that Washington and Moscow would survive (Moscow was on the withhold list in most SIOP scenarios), and that an end to the war would be reached, probably prior to expending all weapons.

Also, the complexion of nuclear war would have been vastly different depending upon time period.  Extermination was a total impossibility in the 1950s, and even in the 1960s and 70s the respective governments were expected to survive, the economies rebuild (importnat targets included "recovery targets"--nuclear power facilities were pretty high on the list of non-counterforce targets, as were other infrastructural targets, such as hydroelectric dams and oil refining facilities, targets which make no sense if you believe you're utterly destroying your enemies).

By the 1980s the number of nuclear weapons on either side might have been enough to seriously degrade entire continental environments, if expended.  That's where people draw the apocalyptic scenarios from.  However, though there would be some effect, the southern hemisphere is not going to be horrifically physically effected even if every city over 100,000 in the north burns.

Interestingly, it was only the very first proto-SIOP (it went by a different name, that eludes me at the moment) that called for massive countervalue attacks (i.e. civilian/city bombing, although this is before the phrase is coined) as a first resort, and across the entire communist world (including Red China, whether or not it was involved in the war; and, believe it or not, including non-Soviet Warsaw Pact cities).  It was a shockingly inflexible plan and Eisenhower pretty much immediately disregarded it and told them go back to the drawing board, but iirc it was theoretically in effect for a few years before new plans were created and implemented under Kennedy, which emphasized warfighting over extermination.

[Razgovory]

What about Nuclear winter scenarios?

[dps]

Also, I believe there have been many more than three total wars (you probably refer to the ACW, WWI, and WWII).  If you mean wars where the single overriding goal was to destroy the enemy's state or even its people, you can add the Third Punic War at least, and almost certainly the Chinese Civil War, and I suspect total war would describe the strategy of some during the Thirty Years War, though I know little of the 30YW (however, I do know that many of our rules of war and general international law arise from that war, e.g. that pussy Grotius).

If you define "total war" as a war in which at least one side aims at the total destruction of the enemy, then most civil wars are total wars.  Most wars between independent states aren't.  Of course, how one defines "the enemy" can affect this definition.

[Ideologue]

I never said most.  Here's another contender: the final phase of the Reconquista.  Or, similarly, Cortez' expedition against the Aztec Empire rapidly became a total war (including accidental biological warfare--used by both sides!).

[Sheilbh]

The soldier-civilian divide is probably the key.

Historically, it's been the exception to the rule.

True. But that was normally as a by-product of war, a way of paying for war or simply as a right of the soldiers.

I agree with PP that this is a consequence of total war. Because it becomes a war of the entire nation, which requires all of its resources and productivity it becomes a war against civilians: your own and the enemy's. Strategic bombing and forced labour, in my view, are both acts of violence against civilians that could be militarily justified.

On the total war debate my view of it would be that it requires the state infrastructure (and probably physical infrastructure) of a 19th century or subsequent nation to count as we understand it.

The Thirty Years War certainly wasn't a total war, though it was one with awful effects.

[Ideologue]

So no Third Punic War, a war predicated on the total cultural and physical destruction of the enemy state?

[Warspite]

To clarify: you can have the equivalent outcome of total war in many different conflicts. Though I would suggest total war is less to do with genocide and wiping states off the map, than it is about the complete mobilisation of every arm of state, of the population itself whether in the factory or in the trench, for the singular purpose of victory.

For this, you need centralised, modern state apparatus. I know there are scholars who disagree, and there is a lot to Viking's and Ideologue's line that total war could be a much older phenomenon. But I would contend there is something unique about total war of the modern era: the combination of nationalism, mass communication, the wielding of the arms of state and industry as well as the arms of the battlefield. The extension of this is that the enemy civilian is a legitimate target, not because of visceral hatred or reprisal, but for the simple fact that there is little to no distinction between combatant and civilian in a total war.

Books on the Cold War.  I own a few, and I've read a few more.  Long time ago.  The only one I recall is SIOP (a history of the SIOPs and their predecessors), by somebody. etc etc

You need to better identify throw-away quips.

[Warspite]

So no Third Punic War, a war predicated on the total cultural and physical destruction of the enemy state?

Hmm.

To me, that is the logic of genocide, not necessarily total war. There can, of course, be an overlap between the two. Total war is not a policy (a desired end), it is a strategy (means): it is in the means of waging war that the line between civilian and combatant are blurred.

This way of looking at it also lets you conceive of total war fought for genocidal ends (Nazi Germany) as opposed to total war fought for civilised ends (Western Allies).

[Sheilbh]

So no Third Punic War, a war predicated on the total cultural and physical destruction of the enemy state?

Basically I agree with Ark. I think total war requires that the sole purpose of the nation is victory, which requires the full coercive power of a modern state. The consequence is that it can make all parts of that state - including infrastructure or factories or workers  - legitimate targets.

[Ideologue]

Well, if the full mobilization of all society is what's required, rather than a pursuit of total victory, how about the Second Punic War, or at least the phase after Cannae?

[PDH]

You really can't have total war until you get the modern industrialized state.  There is just not enough centralization until the late 19th century for such a thing to be possible - at least that is a major view among historians/political science types who study such things.

[Viking]

You really can't have total war until you get the modern industrialized state.  There is just not enough centralization until the late 19th century for such a thing to be possible - at least that is a major view among historians/political science types who study such things.

If you are a tribe or a city state then you don't need a centralized state. You just need to gather the citizens or men of the tribe together.

[PDH]

You really can't have total war until you get the modern industrialized state.  There is just not enough centralization until the late 19th century for such a thing to be possible - at least that is a major view among historians/political science types who study such things.

If you are a tribe or a city state then you don't need a centralized state. You just need to gather the citizens or men of the tribe together.

Tribes don't fight war that way, for one thing.  Total war is not about getting everyone together to fight a battle, it is a strategy of mobilizing the entire resources of the country to the goal of fighting a war.  Even the knock down drag-out of the Greek cities was never such a mobilization of resources.

[Agelastus]

So no Third Punic War, a war predicated on the total cultural and physical destruction of the enemy state?

Rome wanted to destroy Carthage the city, not Punic Africa the cultural region (much of which was still part of the Carthaginian state at the time); you're stretching a little far here.