“Naked use of force has accomplished more for the human race than other endeavor.” Societies wage wars for any number of reason but the scale and scope of conflict is determined by ultimate end state of the conflict. This endstate is tied to development of instrument ( the army), national will, and resources mobilization. Limited war is characterized by the restrained use of weapons and military options while Total war is a conflict of unlimited scope in which a belligerent engages in a mobilization of all available resources at their disposable whether human, industrial, agricultural, military, natural, technological or otherwise, in order to entirely destroy of render beyond use their rivals capacity to continue resistance. ( need citation)
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We can look at endstate chiefly in two large parts, actions conducted for national preservation and acts aimed at resource acquisition or defense. The mobilization and national support needed from a ruler or nation state acting out of preservation will be total. The threat is so great that loss will mean the end of the state as a whole. However, resources defense or acquisition can be a limited duration or objective and does not require a total mobilization or commitment of national resources. The ability to understand and mange these endstate and their proceeding conditions through other elements of national power provide a leaders with another key commodity, that of time. The ability to identify condition and prepare a population, marshall nation will, ramp up production, and training will be key factors in winning a war of national preservation. An excellent object lesson in this is the american civil war. This conflict used military power built on popular support and industrialization (CMHW Pg. 238) The civil war indicated that the capacity of the modern state to fully mobilize its human and industrial resources could feed the battlefield almost indefinitely.
In the end, the scale and scope of war can be managed in terms of objectives and national will. The objective military function is to achieve the enemy’s surrender at a minimal cost of resources/ national treasure.Total war is also an unambiguous concept and generally understood by those doing the fighting. Limited Wars on the other hand imply limited goals and as such are ambiguous and complex
We can look at endstate chiefly in two large parts, actions conducted for national preservation and acts aimed at resource acquisition or defense. The mobilization and national support needed from a ruler or nation state acting out of preservation will be total. The threat is so great that loss will mean the end of the state as a whole. However, resources defense or acquisition can be a limited duration or objective and does not require a total mobilization or commitment of national resources. The ability to understand and mange these endstate and their proceeding conditions through other elements of national power provide a leaders with another key commodity, that of time. The ability to identify condition and prepare a population, marshall nation will, ramp up production, and training will be key factors in winning a war of national preservation. An excellent object lesson in this is the american civil war. This conflict used military power built on popular support and industrialization (CMHW Pg. 238) The civil war indicated that the capacity of the modern state to fully mobilize its human and industrial resources could feed the battlefield almost indefinitely.
In the end, the scale and scope of war can be managed in terms of objectives and national will. The objective military function is to achieve the enemy’s surrender at a minimal cost of resources/ national treasure.Total war is also an unambiguous concept and generally understood by those doing the fighting. Limited Wars on the other hand imply limited goals and as such are ambiguous and complex