Absolute War - Confusion With Total War

Confusion With Total War

The recognition of total war since World War I has created a degree of confusion for many, who fail to understand the differences between it and the concept of absolute war, often using the terms interchangeably and blaming Germany's conduct of "total war" on the writings of Prussian military theorist Carl von Clausewitz. In reality, however, Clausewitz neither coined nor used the term "total war," and "absolute (or ideal) war" is quite a different concept.

Total war is essentially a war in which the home front (that is, a state's political system, society and economy) is mobilised to a massive degree for the continuation and expansion of the war effort--it implies the subordination of politics (internal and external) to the goal of purely military victory. It is characterised by civilian infrastructure and civilians themselves becoming highly involved in war as part of the military's logistical support system.

Absolute war on the other hand, is war that reaches its logical extremes (as mentioned above) when it is free from the moderating effects that are imposed on it by politics and society, not to mention the practical constraints of time and space. As wars cannot run themselves, and require politics and society to exist, Clausewitz held absolute war to be impossible, as it could not avoid these influences.

Although most of the confusion over "absolute war" is the result of sloppy reading (or no reading) of Clausewitz's actual discussion in Book One of On War (the only part of Clausewitz's unfinished draft that he considered to be in finished form), some careful readers point out that there are several references in later sections of the book (which, somewhat confusingly, are derived from earlier drafts) to "absolute war" that reflect an earlier conception of such war as simply the more extreme reaches of the forms that Napoleonic warfare had actually achieved. This conception, however, was clearly rejected by the mature Clausewitz.