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「戰爭」與「反戰」 -- 開欄文
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2023年我收到傅大為、盧倩儀、馮建三、和郭力昕等四位教授發起的《我們的反戰聲明》時，就想專闢一欄刊出該聲明，並收集網上以及我自己討論「戰爭」與「反戰」的文章。但是，由於這個題目很大，我一時三刻間寫不出一篇提綱挈領的「開欄文」；所以作罷。後來將該聲明和拙作《「我們的反戰聲明」爭議淺見》分別單獨刊出。
現在想想這其實不是個充分理由。最近讀到一篇介紹雷博教授著作的文章(本欄第三篇)，覺得有寫篇評論的必要(本欄第四篇)；寫作過程中，由於搜查相關資料，又看到史投克教授的大作(本欄下一篇)。我認為它值得介紹，就決定以這三篇文章為基礎而開此欄。
史投克教授的大作不但分析了「全面戰爭」這個「概念」，他借這個分析來強調：使用「明白清晰」的概念在建構理論和政策上非常重要。史投克教授在該文中並簡明的闡釋了韋伯「理想型」概念；軍事學之外，全文在「方法論」上也頗有參考價值。
我一向認為論述中所用詞彙和「概念」需要明白易懂，以及其「所指」應該確定而無岐義；我曾經說過和史投克教授同樣的話：
「如果一個詞彙或概念『無所不指』，則它實際上就會變得『無所指』」。
我不敢說和史投克教授「英雄所見略同」；或許，理性、務實的人在思考邏輯上都是同路人吧。
本文於 修改第 8 次
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《真正導致戰爭發生最多的原因》簡評
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0. 前言
該文報導雷博教授就引爆戰爭「原因」的結論(請見本欄2025/07/06貼文)。雷博教授是知名的政治學家，主要研究領域是國際關系；據說他是一位「現實論」者。不過，我對畢希雅女士文章中所介紹他得到的「結論」甚不以為然，在此略做批評。
我沒有讀過雷博教授這本書，自然沒有資格評論該書中：引述的史實、分析的步驟、和推理的依據等等。本文只從我對「戰爭」和「方法論」的了解，就畢希雅女士文章的介紹提出一些拙見。還請網友們指正。Trump is already lowering the bar on China tariffs blasting President Xi as ‘hard to make a deal with’
1. 我的「戰爭觀」
我認為政治是：「爭奪資源分配權的活動」。這是帶學究氣的說法；用口語來說，政治是：「爭權奪利的活動」，或類似我們常常在鄉下街頭巷尾看到的狗搶骨頭動作。
克勞塞維茲對「戰爭」的定義是：「另一種延續政治對話的方式」(我的意譯)；史投克教授則認為：「『戰爭』應該以它企圖達到的『政治目的』來了解和規劃」(本欄2025/07/05貼文；我的解讀)。
如果綜合這三個對「政治」和「戰爭」的理解，在我看來，戰爭的目的在於：解決「資源」(包括土地、水源等)的歸屬；簡單的說：絕大多數戰爭是為了「爭奪利益」。
2. 戰爭論述可能遇到的陷阱
2.1 抽樣偏差
此小節指出：在非自然科學領域，一般討論任何特定事務或議題「性質」的學者，在選擇相關「樣本」的過程中，經常有：「挑支持自己『預設』想法『案例』」的傾向。
2.2 表面理由和實質理由
由於在任何一個社會中，「資源」或「利益」只掌握在少數人手中。也就是說，戰爭勝利的果實只有少數人能享受；但戰爭的艱苦和戰敗的惡果卻由大多數人民承擔。因此，主政者或掌握國家機器的集團經常使用「宰制論述」或天花亂墜的「宣傳」來替戰爭真正「目的」擦脂抹粉，來騙取廣大民眾的支持。
一位歷史學家或政治學家需要目光如炬、思路清楚才能辨別「原因」和「文宣」或「戰鬥口號」。簡言之，孔夫子說的「審問」、「慎思」、和「明辨」是也(《中庸》第22)。
2.3 「戰爭」本質
孫子說：「兵者，國之大事，死生之地，存亡之道，不可不察也」(《孫子•始計》第1)。
任何對軍事略有所知的人都知道：
1) 戰爭往往必須盡舉國之力來進行才能取得勝利(此處可參考本欄2025/07/05貼文)。其決策過程必然包含類似「集思廣益」的動作。
2) 戰爭不是過家家。開戰之前的準備工作包括：情報、兵員、武備、後勤、規劃、和外交等等。它們不是國家領袖能夠「一個命令，一個動作」就能完成；這些工作需要多方面的協調配合，也就需要聽取多方面的意見和評估。
3) 不論戰勝或戰敗，其結果不但嚴重而且深遠，同時它會危及方方面面的利益。
因此，即使在獨裁或專制國家，「要不要打仗」不是少數人，更不是一個人能拍板定案。
至於學術界充斥著一些「修正派」學者或「援嘴」型學者(該欄2025/03/06貼文「附註」1)，他/她們拿錢著書，大家就心照不宣了。
不了解戰爭的複雜性而侃侃談論戰爭的起因，充其量不過是紙上談兵、霧裏看花、隔靴搔癢之類的行為。
3. 雷博教授的「結論」
畢希雅女士的文章介紹雷博教授對「戰爭起因」所做的研究，自1648後發生94個國際戰爭中，雷博教授歸納出「起因」的類型如下(請見本欄2025/07/06貼文)：
1) 維護國際地位 -- 58%。
2) 維護國家安全 -- 18%。
3) 復仇 -- 10%。
4) 爭奪物質資源 -- 7%。
根據我上一節的觀察，以下針對雷博教授「戰爭起因」結論提出我的看法。
1) 如上所述，我沒有讀過雷博教授大作，不能對他在「抽樣」過程中是否「精挑細選」做評論。這裏只是指出：雷博教授得到的結論，可能跟他選擇的「樣本」有關。
2) 同上，這裏只是指出：雷博教授得到的結論，可能跟他輕信：發起「戰爭」者自吹自擂或自說自話的「原因」；沒有深入探索引爆該「戰爭」的實際「原因」有關。
例如：「國際地位」和「國家安全」很可能都只是表面理由或片面理由。換句話說，維持「國際地位」只是便於放言「維持」者保持巧取豪奪的實力；「國家安全」問題之所以會產生，往往是鄰國企圖染指感到受威脅國家的「土地」或「天然資源」等等。
3) 如我指出：是否進行「戰爭」是執政階層中許多個別集團的共同「決策」，不是一個人或一個集團能夠單獨決定。從而，屬於個人層次的「虛驕」(「國際地位」)或「情緒反應」(「仇恨」或「過節」)，很少進入集體決策過程的考量。
綜合以上討論，它們是我在「前言」中做了：「『據說』他是一位『現實論』者」這個略帶揶揄評論的原因。
由於我沒有讀雷博教授的大作；對歷史和戰爭史也毫無研究；此處只能做一般性的討論，畢希雅女士文章中所列舉的個案就略而不論了。
3. 結論
Trump is already lowering the bar on China tariffs blasting President Xi as ‘hard to make a deal with’
1) 社會/人文科學的研究，最忌研究主有先入為主的成見或預設。這會導致研究者墜入第2節中所提及的前兩個「陷阱」或「認知偏差」。
2) 畢希雅女士顯然犯了「盡信書」的毛病。
本文於 修改第 3 次
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真正導致戰爭發生最多的原因 - Carlyn Beccia
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Why Nations Go to War? A Researcher Analyzed 94 Wars and Found One Common Reason
No, it’s not resources or land.
Carlyn Beccia, 05/ 27/25
To all our veterans, thank you for your service. And to my dad, who served his country for all the right reasons. (請至原網頁觀看美軍公墓照片)
On March 20, 2003, the United States launched “Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF).” We all know the official narrative — Saddam Hussein had “weapons of mass destruction.” Apparently, Hussein was cooking up nuclear warheads in his basement like some kind of James Bond villain. We had no choice. We had to invade. The world was at stake.
Except none of that was true.
What there was, however, was George W. Bush with a vendetta. Saddam had once tried to assassinate his daddy, and like any good son of Texas, Bush responded the way anyone would — with a multi-trillion-dollar war and a few hundred thousand body bags. Freud would have had a field day.
The Iraq War isn’t an isolated case. Most people assume wars are about oil, strategy, protecting borders, acquiring land and resources, or simply keeping the bad guys at bay. You know, practical things. Sure, reasons often overlap. When nations go to war, it is never straight-line thinking.
So, Historian Richard Ned Lebow decided to examine those reasons. He found one common thread.
Why Nations Really Go to War?
Historian Richard Ned Lebow analyzed 94 interstate wars since 1648. Surprisingly, he found most wars aren’t about material gain or land.
Lebow found that the most common reasons nations go to war are status, security, and revenge.
Lebow’s research, compiled in Why Nations Fight, found that 58% of wars were primarily motivated by standing or status, 18% were motivated by security, and 10% were fought for revenge. Only 7% of wars were fought over material interests. That means the most common cause of war isn’t oil, land, or fear — it’s ego with a flag.
There’s a fancy Greek word for this: thumos. It’s the part of human nature that craves recognition. It’s what makes a guy buy a Ferrari when he’s going bald or leads a woman to get breast implants when bits start to sag. And sometimes, thumos causes an entire country to say, “Oh, you think we’re weak? We’ll show you weak.”
Now, to be fair, Lebow acknowledges that nations often wrap their wars in logic. They say they’re protecting borders, securing trade routes, or rescuing kittens from tyranny. And sometimes they are. Resources matter. Strategy matters.
However, often these rationales are camouflage.
Take Vladimir Putin. On the surface, his invasion of Ukraine looks like a cold geopolitical calculation. Ukraine is a major energy transit route. Gaining control (or instability) would increase Russia’s leverage over Europe’s gas supplies. Cha-ching.
And sure, that is the wrapping paper. But underneath it all is wounded pride. Ukraine kept flirting with the West, and Putin didn’t like that. It was like watching your ex post pictures with someone taller, richer, and better at democracy.
Now, Putin’s not just playing Risk on a Soviet nostalgia board. He’s trying to be the man who brings Russia back to its “rightful” place. He wants statues, songs, and possibly a cologne named after him. This is what happens when you give a KGB agent with a giant ego a nuclear arsenal and too many shirtless photo ops. You get a man who wants to redraw borders to match the bruises on his wounded pride.
Putin’s ambitions run deep. He wants to be remembered not as the bureaucrat who managed a declining petrostate, but as the man who “restored” Russian greatness. In other words, the ego isn’t just part of the plan — it is the plan.
So yes, war can be about geography. But it’s also about geography’s sexier, more unstable cousin: identity.
Examples of Wars Fueled by Pride and Payback
Institutions and states don’t have emotions. But the people who run them can often be petty, insecure, and ego-driven. And when those people have control of armies, bad things happen. Here are a few examples.
The Peloponnesian War — Athens vs. Sparta, Ego Edition
The Peloponnesian War (431–404 BCE) wasn’t about security. It was about Athens acting like the prom queen and Sparta saying, “Not on my watch, sweetheart.” Athens had turned the Delian League into its personal slush fund and cultural fan club. Sparta, the laconic muscle bro of ancient Greece, got sick of Athens bragging about its democracy and pottery.
When Athens got too big for its britches, Sparta wasn’t having it. This hurt ego led to a 27-year-long war that reduced the Greek world to rubble. Security concerns? Maybe. But mostly, it was a brutal contest for dominance.
What followed was a heck of a lot of backstabbing, sieges, and general nonsense. Thucydides, who literally wrote the book on it, said the real cause was fear — Sparta’s fear of losing status to a rising Athens.
The Spanish Succession: Who Gets to Wear the Fancy Hat?
In 1701, Europe collectively lost its mind over who would inherit the Spanish throne after Charles II died without an heir. The main contenders? The French Bourbons and the Austrian Habsburgs. Both sides feared that if the other won, the balance of power would tilt, leading to a European superpower.
But underneath the diplomatic hand-wringing was the simple question of royal honor. No one wanted their dynasty to be the one that “lost Spain.” So, rather than accept a compromise, they dragged most of Europe into the War of the Spanish Succession — 13 years of battles, burned cities, and baffled peasants.
It ended in 1714 with the Treaty of Utrecht, which settled some territorial disputes but didn’t do much for the real issue: inflated dynastic egos in powdered wigs.
The War of Jenkins’ Ear — Yes, His Ear
Ever heard of this one? Its official name was the War of the Austrian Succession, but that’s a mouthful, so let’s just call it the dumbest war ever.
In 1731, British captain Robert Jenkins claimed Spanish coast guards cut off his ear while searching his ship in the Caribbean. Eight years later, in 1739, Britain declared war on Spain. Why the delay? Because Parliament suddenly needed a good excuse to assert naval dominance and distract from domestic issues.
The ear, which Jenkins allegedly preserved in a jar and showed to Parliament, became the mascot for a conflict that was less about cartilage and more about colonial bragging rights. It was a war about trade, tariffs, and who got to boss around the West Indies. But it was packaged as righteous revenge for one man’s ear.
The Franco-Prussian War — Bismarck’s PR Campaign
In 1870, Otto von Bismarck, the Iron Chancellor of Prussia, wanted to unify the German states under Prussian rule. France, under Napoleon III, was seen as the final obstacle. So Bismarck edited a diplomatic telegram — the Ems Dispatch — to make it sound like the French ambassador had been insulted.
France’s Napoleon III took the bait and declared war because, well, he couldn’t be seen backing down. The result? A humiliating French defeat, the capture of Napoleon himself, and the birth of a unified German Empire in the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles. All because two leaders needed to look tough.
The American Civil War
(Note: Lebow didn’t include civil wars in his analysis of why nations go to war.)
The American Civil War wasn’t just a hissy fit over cotton and human bondage (though, yes, slavery was the economic engine and moral sinkhole at the center of it all). No, beneath the musket smoke and mint julep breath, there was a piping-hot dish of revenge served cold, or, in this case, re-heated over four years of national carnage.
After Lincoln won the 1860 election without carrying a single Southern state, the Southern elite viewed the rise of abolitionism not only as a threat to their plantations but as a personal insult to their manhood, honor, and God-given right to sip lemonade while someone else did the sweating. Sure, the end of slavery posed a real economic panic for plantation owners. (Losing free labor does tend to ruin a business model.) But it was the cultural slap across the face that really lit the cannon fuse. In the South’s eyes, the North had snatched away their social supremacy and paraded it around like a prize hog at a county fair.
So, what did the South do? Like any jilted aristocrat with access to cannonballs, they tried to take it all back. Not just their property, but their pride, place, and peculiar institution.
World War I — A Global Bar Fight
In 1914, a teenager named Gavrilo Princip shot an archduke. That should’ve been a minor diplomatic headache. Instead, it kicked off a global war.
The archduke’s murder cascaded into a standoff. Austria-Hungary couldn’t let Serbia get away with it. Germany wanted to prove it was a big deal. Britain and France wanted to keep Germany in check. It was less about safety and more about, “Oh, you think you can push us around?”
By 1918, over 16 million people were dead, including 9.7 million military personnel and 6.8 million civilians. And what did it solve? Basically nothing. The war ended with a treaty so bitter it created the sequel.
World War II: Versailles, Vengeance, and Very Bad Decisions
World War II is often portrayed as a fight against fascism. True. But not the whole story.
Let’s rewind to 1919. The Treaty of Versailles essentially handed Germany a humiliation sandwich with a side of debt. It forced Germany to accept full blame for World War I, pay reparations equivalent to hundreds of billions today, and surrender territory.
Enter Hitler, who didn’t rise to power by offering economic spreadsheets. He promised revenge, honor, and the restoration of national pride. Nazi propaganda leaned heavily on the theme of verlorene Ehre — lost honor. In 1933, polls showed that Germans supported Hitler’s foreign policy objectives, including rearming the military and defying Versailles.
By the time Germany invaded Poland in 1939, Hitler was playing a high-stakes game of historical payback. Honor wasn’t just a side dish; it was the main course.
Can We Stop Fighting for Stupid Reasons?
Wars aren’t started by rational people thinking through the best way to keep their citizens safe. According to the United Nations, 90% of war casualties are civilians. (Other studies put the average civilian casualties closer to 60%.) Either way, war is bad for the little people.
Can we predict the next war? Probably not. Unfortunately, wars rarely come with a single motivation. But we can at least recognize the warning signs. When a leader starts puffing up his chest, demanding respect and gratitude, or making vague threats about national pride, “retribution” and “poisoning the blood of our nation,” maybe…just maybe, it’s time to sit up and pay attention.
Because here’s the truth: Wars don’t start when tanks roll. They start when one man in power feels small and decides the only cure is to make someone else bleed for it.
So the next time a puffed-up politician demands respect, maybe don’t give him your sons, your daughters, or your taxes. Give him therapy. Or better yet, a very long nap and maybe a shot of that impulse-controlling “fat drug.”
Or, as Steinbeck put it, “All war is a symptom of man’s failure as a thinking animal.”
And yet, we keep building smarter bombs for dumber men.
Written by Carlyn Beccia
Carlyn Beccia is an award-winning author and illustrator of 13 books. Love grim history? Subscribe to A Grim Historian for a weekly dose of the darkest and most depressing history. Her latest: 10 AT 10: The Surprising Childhoods of 10 Remarkable People, MONSTROUS: The Lore, Gore, & Science. CarlynBeccia.com
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以「全面戰爭」為例說明清晰「概念」的重要--D. Stoker
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What’s in a Name II: “Total War” and Other Terms that Mean Nothing
Donald Stoker, US Naval War College, 2016
To cite this article:Stoker, Donald, “What’s in a Name II: “Total War” and Other Terms that Mean Nothing,” Infinity Journal, Volume 5, Issue No. 3, fall 2016, pages 21-23.
The historian Peter Paret pointed out in 1960 that “any discussion of war is bedeviled by a confusion of terms… the definitions have undergone repeated modification—and in different countries not always to the same effect.”[i] “Total war” perfectly illustrates this problem. The term is commonly used in discussions of warfare, but usually as an undefined catchall that fails to provide a firm foundation for discussion and analysis. Modern writing on warfare too often lacks this needed basis. Much of it uses theoretical approaches to the study of war, but these have generally failed to help generate policies and strategies that lead to victory. Poorly reasoned, poorly constructed theory—which includes poorly defined terms and concepts—can detrimentally influence how wars are fought, as well as whether or not one wins them.
Carl von Clausewitz told us why good theory is necessary: “The primary purpose of any theory is to clarify concepts and ideas that have become…confused and entangled.”[ii] Theory, as Sir Julian Corbett tells us, can help “a capable man to acquire a broad outlook.” Theory should teach us to think, to analyze, to bring a critical but informed eye to the problem at hand and consider both its depth and breadth. It also serves to ground us by defining our terms and providing us a firm foundation for analysis while teaching us to distinguish between what is important and what isn’t.[iii] Theory, Clausewitz reminds us—particularly any theory addressing warfare—“is meant to educate the mind of the future commander.”[iv]
Clausewitz and Corbett also gave us the intellectual basis for building a solid theoretical approach to war: defining wars based upon the political objective sought. Clausewitz made clear his intention to rewrite his unfinished opus based upon his epiphany that all wars are fought for regime change or something less, but did not live to do so.[v] Corbett built upon Clausewitz’s work to construct a theory of maritime warfare and gave us the terms “unlimited war” to describe a conflict waged to overthrow the enemy government (an unlimited political objective), and “limited war” for a war fought for something less (a limited political objective).[vi] Rational discussion and analysis of all wars fits within this framework by beginning with the starting point of both Clausewitz and Corbett: all wars are fought either for the political objective of regime change or something less than this.
Critically, there is no room in this clear, simple, ironclad typology for so-called “total war”. The most significant problem with the term “total war” is that it is used to mean everything and thus it means nothing. Historian Brian Bond goes so far as to call “total war” a “myth.”[vii] Historian Eugenia Kiesling compares discussions of “total war” to medieval “ruminations about angels cavorting on pinheads.”[viii] Even when “total war” is defined (and often it is not), the definitions are valueless. For example, one author writing in 1957 defines a “total war” as one where “the survival of the U.S. or U.S.S.R. as sovereign nations is the issue of the war.” He goes on to insist that there was no satisfactory definition of limited war and that no one could explain when a conflict stopped being this and moved to being “total.”[ix] He makes his point by comparing one badly defined thing (“total war”) with something else that is equally badly defined (“limited war”) by almost every author who writes on the subject.[x]
Generally, “total war” is used to mean a “big” war, particularly the twentieth century world wars. Explications of “total war” also usually include wars fought for the overthrow or complete conquest of the enemy regime. Discussions of potential nuclear wars are often described as “total wars,” particularly in limited war theory, and sometimes include other elements such as genocide or the extermination of an enemy. Some similar terms that are often used interchangeably can be thrown in the same bowl: general war, major war, big war, national war, all-out-war, central war, and any others in this vein. These provide further examples of the definitional catastrophe that is too much of today’s military and political theorizing and writing. A related (though valueless) definition commonly accepted in certain academic circles is: “Major war means an operation where the United States deployed over fifty thousand troops and there were at least one thousand battle deaths.”[xi]
Critically, all of these definitions are dependent upon a variable that is consistently fluid: the means used to wage the war. So, do we define a war as “total” because it involves extensive mobilization, the overthrow of the enemy, the harnessing of society, and even genocide? Rationally, we cannot because this does not provide a firm foundation for critical analysis. These definitions are subject to debate and thus lack explanatory clarity.
The modern use of the term “total war” can be dated to the French push in the last year of the First World War for guerre totale, which meant renewing the nation’s ideological and political dedication to the struggle. German Field Marshal Erich Ludendorff used the term in his 1918-19 memoirs and his 1935 book Totale Krieg. In these examples whether or not a war is “total” generally boils down to an issue of means.[xii] Discussions of “total war” very often pick World War I as its first example, though sometimes the French Revolutionary Wars and the US Civil War are branded the first “total wars.” These efforts focus generally—if not exclusively—on the means utilized or mobilized for the struggle in their efforts to define it, and are often tied to discussions of escalation based upon nations increasing the means they dedicate to the war.[xiii]
Political scientist Robert Osgood offers us one of the better definitions of “total war”, but it also characterizes the analytical and critical failure exhibited by use of this term as part of a coherent theoretical approach: “that distinct twentieth-century species of unlimited war in which all the human and material resources of the belligerents are mobilized and employed against the total national life of the enemy.”[xiv] This definition has several problems.
First, it is limited to the twentieth century, and thus not consistently applicable as an analytical tool.
Second, it insists upon the mobilization of all of a state’s “human and material resources.”
This is impossible. A state cannot harness “all” of its resources for war or anything else. During the Second World War the Soviet Union’s leaders mobilized more of their nation’s human and physical resources than any state in history, but even Stalinism could not mobilize “all” of the nation’s means. During the US Civil War, nearly 80 percent of the Confederacy’s white male population aged 15-40 served in uniform.[xv] But even this extreme number is not “all.” Nation states have a difficult time putting more than 10 percent of their people in the military. Going beyond this often begins to cause the economy to breakdown.
Osgood’s definition also mixes ends and means, which is also not unusual. Indeed, one could argue that the defining element of definitions of “total war” is the emphasis on means. Wars cannot be defined by the means used because this is a nebulous, subjective factor and thus does not pass the defining test of building a theory upon solid ground. The means nations dedicate to pursuing political objects are a manifestation of the value they place upon that object. The means used to fight the war are also one of the contributing factors helping to create the nature of the struggle. But the means used do not and indeed cannot define the war itself. The political objective sought defines the war, not the means or methods used in pursuit of this.
The problem with having a poor analytical foundation for any discussion—or none at all—particularly one examining the development of an idea or concept is clearly demonstrated in Cambridge University Press’s five volume study of “total war”.[xvi] In a series drawing upon a staggering array of the era’s best writers on military affairs, the editors missed the chance to create a supremely groundbreaking work because they failed from the outset to define “total war” and thereby provide a solid foundation for analysis. What makes this especially remarkable is that the editors identified the answer to their problem but then didn’t grasp it. They linked the concept of limited war to the manner in which Max Weber used an “ideal type,” as well as Clausewitz’s discussion of “absolute war” and “total war” (terms he used interchangeably to denote an “ideal type”).[xvii] Simply put, when using the “ideal type” methodology the writer sets up a theoretical ideal that cannot be reached. Various factors intervene to produce a reality that is acted upon by these factors that keep the resulting creature from ascending to the ideal. This is the method of analysis used by Clausewitz in On War. To him “absolute war” and “total war” (again, terms he uses interchangeably) represent the unreachable “ideal type.” War—if the state could utilize all of its resources and never stop moving toward its goal—would be “total” or “absolute”, but reality intervenes. Politics, friction, the actions of the enemy, and other things unite to produce the reality of war.[xviii] By using “total war” as an ideal type in the manner of Weber and Clausewitz, combined with the insistence by both Clausewitz and Corbett of the tendency of wars to escalate and consume more of the state’s resources in a climb toward the unreachable theoretical ideal, the editors could have placed their contributors on a firm and coherent path. The articles could have been strengthened further by the addition of Clausewitz’s concept of whether or not the warring states were pursuing regime change or more limited political goals. This would then force a needed and clearer delineation between the political aim or aims sought and the means and methods used to try and achieve them—which again shows why wars can’t be defined by the means used because the means derive from the value of the political objective sought. All of this goes to again prove that if the analytical foundation lacks clarity and strength the building falls.
Other discussions of “total war” center on the use of technology, particularly technology that intensifies the bloodshed and destruction delivered at the tactical level. But this is only an example of war’s natural tendency to escalate and is merely the offering of yet another argument for defining “total war” by the means used. Technology and the increasing power of the modern centralized state simply feed war’s inherent escalatory nature and allow more intense escalation. All wars—civil wars, guerrilla wars, limited wars, religious wars, and every other kind of war—fit within the Clausewitz/Corbett typology because all wars are fought for political objects, even if these are sometimes masked by religious terms or propaganda.
Interestingly, the editors of these volumes raise the question of whether the term “total war” should be killed because it creates more confusion than clarity—something about which they are completely correct—but then make the mistake of refusing to kill the enemy when the opportunity arrives. Instead, they argue for the term’s retention and ask “that historians henceforth should attend more to its manifold hazards and limitations.”[xix] Editing a five-volume historical work should have decisively convinced the editors of the impossibility of this. Unfortunately, the current writer and his fellow historians are only part of the problem. Journalists, political scientists, pundits, students of international relations, and military officers are just as dangerous when they embark upon discussions of so-called “total war,” possibly even more so because they often lack the historical knowledge necessary to provide solid analysis and critical nuance.
Why does all of this matter? One of the great failings of discussions and analysis of military affairs and strategic issues is the lack of definitional clarity. These fields are infested with buzzwords and jargon that cloud issues and thereby weaken our ability to understand and explain past—and more importantly—current conflicts. For example, much ink has been spilled of late over “Gray Zone Wars.” But there is nothing new here. Authors in the 1950s were discussing “war in the gray zone”—and in relation to conflicts on the periphery of Russia (though it was still called the Soviet Union).[xx]
Unless someone is discussing war in a theoretical sense the term “total war” should never appear in historical or policy writing. Why? Because it has no analytical solidity, fails to clearly illuminate the nature of conflict, and adds needless linguistic opacity. It creates confusion instead of producing clarity, and it is clarity that we need.
References
[i] Peter Paret, “A Total Weapon of Limited War,” Royal United Services Institution, Vol. 105, No. 617 (1960), 34.
[ii] Carl von Clausewitz, On War, Michael Howard and Peter Paret, trans. and eds. (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1984), 132.
[iii] Sir Julian Corbett, Some Principles of Maritime Strategy, Eric Grove, intro. and notes (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1988 [1911]), 3-7.
[iv] Clausewitz, On War, 141.
[v] Clausewitz, On War, 69.
[vi] Clausewitz, On War, 69; Corbett, Some Principles of Maritime Strategy, 44-46. Clausewitz discusses wars fought for “limited aims” in Book 8 of On War.
[vii] Brian Bond, War and Society in Europe, 1870-1970 (Montreal: McGill-Queens University Press, 1998), 168.
[viii] Eugenia C. Kiesling, ‘”Total War, Total Nonsense” or “The Military Historian’s Fetish,” in Michael S. Neiberg, ed., Arms and the Man: Military History Essays in Honor of Dennis Showalter (Leiden: Brill, 2011), 220.
[ix] Ephraim M Hampton, “Unlimited Confusion Over Limited War,” Air University Quarterly Review, Vol. IX (Spring 1957), 31-32.
[x] For two examples of bad definitions of limited war see the following: John Garnett, “Limited War,” in John Baylis, Ken Booth, John Garnett, and Phil Williams, Contemporary Strategy: Theories and Policies (New York: Holmes & Meier, 1982), 123; Robert McClintock, The Meaning of Limited War (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, 1967), 5.
[xi] Dominic Tierney, The Right Way to Lose a War: America in an Age of Unwinnable Conflicts (New York: Little Brown, 2015), 7. In footnote 12 on page 317, the author notes that the term “major war” is problematic because it could be major for one side and not the other. But the real reason is that “major war,” like “total war,” has no concrete meaning.
[xii] John Horne, “Introduction: Mobilizing for ‘Total War’, 1914-1918,” in John Horne, ed., State, Society, and Mobilization in Europe During the First World War (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 4.
[xiii] See Horne, “Introduction: Mobilizing for ‘Total War’, 1914-1918,” 3-5, and I. F. Beckett, “Total War,” in C. Emsley, A. Marwick, and F. Simpson, eds., War, Peace, and Social Change in Twentieth Century Europe (Milton Keynes, UK: Open University Press, 1989), especially 28, 31-32.
[xiv] Robert E. Osgood, Limited War: The Challenge to American Strategy (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1957), 3.
[xv] Donald Stoker, The Grand Design: Strategy and the U.S. Civil War (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 24.
[xvi] Stig Förster and Jörg Nagler, On the Road to Total War: The American Civil War and the German Wars of Unification, 1861-1871, German Historical Institute (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 15; Manfred F. Boemke, Roger Chickering, and Stig Förster. Anticipating Total War: The German and American Experiences, 1871-1914, German Historical Institute (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 15-16, 16 fn.3, 23-24, 24 fn. 47; Roger Chickering and Stig Förster, eds., Great War, Total War. Combat and Mobilization on the Western Front, 1914-1918 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2000); Roger Chickering and Stig Förster, eds, The Shadows of Total War: Europe, East Asia, and the United States, 1919-1939, German Historical Institute (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 3-10; Roger Chickering, Stig Förster, and Bernd Greinder, eds., A World at Total War: Global Conflict and the Politics of Destruction, 1937–1945, German Historical Institute (Cambridge; Cambridge University Press, 2010). See also this review: Talbot Imlay, “Total War,” Journal of Strategic Studies, Vol. 30, No. 3 (2007), 547-570.
[xvii] Clausewitz, On War, especially 580 and 582, but also 488-489, 501, 581, 606.
[xviii] Clausewitz, On War, 80-89 (especially 85), 579-581. The editors also bind Clausewitz’s teachings—incorrectly—to his experience in the Napoleonic era. This is a misreading of the text because Clausewitz’s larger ideas are not limited by the Napoleonic era. They do note his passage on “absolute war” where he says that it was reached under Napoleon, but they miss the contradiction in Clausewitz’s discussion of “absolute war” because they do not examine the fullness of the text on this point.
[xix] Boemke, et al, eds., Anticipating Total War, 16.
[xx] See Thomas K. Finletter, Power and Policy: US Foreign and Military Policy in the Hydrogen Age (Harcourt, Brace and Co., 1954), 81-192, especially 84-85; Osgood, Limited War, 267-274, 307; Henry Kissinger, “Military Policy and the Defense of the ‘Grey Areas’,” Foreign Affairs, Vol. 33, No. 3 (Apr. 1958), 416-428; E. Biöklund, “Can War Be Limited? (In General or Local Wars),” Air Power, Vol. 6 (Summer 1959), 287-293. Finletter seems to have been first to print with the concept.
Donald Stoker is Professor of Strategy and Policy for the US Naval War College’s Monterey Program at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California. The author or editor of seven previous books, his most recent work is Carl von Clausewitz: His Life and Work (Oxford University Press, 2014). His The Grand Design: Strategy and the U.S. Civil War, 1861-1865 (Oxford University Press, 2010), won the prestigious Fletcher Pratt award for best non-fiction Civil War book of 2010. In 2016 he was a Fellow of the Changing Character of War Programme at the University of Oxford’s Pembroke College. He is currently co-editing three books on advising and writing a book on limited war.
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