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Total War
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What is Total War?

Total war refers to a mode of warfare in which a society mobilizes all available resources — military, economic, industrial, and civilian — toward the war effort, while also targeting the enemy's capacity and will to fight across every front. Students encounter this topic in history, political science, and military studies courses, where it serves as a framework for understanding how modern conflicts escalate beyond battlefield engagements. The concept becomes particularly compelling academically because it forces examination of the ethical, strategic, and social dimensions of organized violence, especially in cases such as the American Civil War and the World Wars, where the line between combatant and civilian grew increasingly blurred.

The papers archived on this topic reflect a range of analytical approaches. Several focus on the American Civil War, examining Sherman's march and the shift from limited to total warfare as a deliberate strategic choice. Others take a comparative or chronological approach, tracing the evolution of warfare from the Civil War era through World War I and World War II, including specific episodes such as the internment of Japanese Americans and the bombing of Hiroshima. Book reviews and historical analyses also appear, engaging directly with scholarship on the origins of modern warfare and the Western way of war.

A strong essay on total war needs a focused thesis that connects strategic methods to broader consequences — political, humanitarian, or social. Evidence drawn from specific campaigns, policies, or their civilian impacts tends to carry more weight than general claims about war's destructiveness. The most common pitfall is conflating all large-scale wars with total war; a precise definition applied consistently throughout the essay is essential.

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Paper Undergraduate

Comparing the military theories of Jomini and Clausewitz

In this paper a comparison of the strategic literatures of Carl von Clausewitz and Antoine-Henri Jomini have been carried out. Carl von Clausewitz and Antoine-Henri Jomini were the 19th Century military strategists. The geo-political forces will be discussed in the paper along with the individual experiences that were of crucial importance in forming the hypothesis of each one of these theorist regarding the war. In the conclusion a discussion about the major contributions made by Clausewitz to the strategic thought are discussed.

Paper High School

European revolutions and conflicts during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries

The nineteenth century was filled with turmoil as a result of particular political ideologies receiving significant attention from the public and because imperialism started to be regarded as an effective tool to assist empires in gathering large profits. Even with the fact that trade influenced some powerful players to express interest in imposing a system promoting peaceful attitudes, it was difficult and almost impossible for other nations to refrain from considering war as the best solution to their problems. This century enabled the world as a whole to look at the social order from a different perspective – globalization was underway and more and more conflicts emerged as a result of people having differences in opinion. Conflicts occurring throughout the nineteenth century can practically be considered to have shaped the way the world evolved and to have influenced much of thinking expressed in the contemporary society.The twentieth century was very similar to the nineteenth century when considering the wars and conflicts that occurred throughout the past century. However, the fact that technology experienced significant progress and that the number of people grew rapidly as a consequence also reflected negatively on the numbers of deaths occurring through a conflict. The two World Wars were large enough to involve almost the entire world in a conflict motivated by a series of controversial concepts. To a certain degree, one can safely claim that the conflicts occurring throughout the twentieth century had more of an influence on the social order than any other events happening throughout this time period.

Paper Undergraduate

Kennedy's ethical framework during the Cuban Missile Crisis

This paper discusses John Fitzgerald Kennedy and the Cuban Missile Crisis. At that time, the Soviet Union installed nuclear weapons in Cuba. The US was allegedly thirteen days from all-out nuclear war. Had Kennedy acted incorrectly, things could have gotten severely out of hand. However, since he acted calmly and intelligently peace was maintained.

Paper Undergraduate

SDAIE lesson plan on Wilson administration propaganda during World War One

This paper designs a complete, detailed, general education SDAIE or Sheltered English lesson plan based on the approach described in the course Writing Effective Lesson Plan textbook in a content area of the subject of history based on both the California English Language Art Standards and English Language Development standards, as well as my specific content area standards (when applicable).

Paper Undergraduate

William Tecumseh Sherman's total war strategy and the Confederacy's collapse

The Civil War ended quickly after Lee's surrender at Appomattox: Why?

Paper Doctorate

Opium prohibition and the rise of illicit drug markets

This paper elaborates licit and illicit drugs and their consumption for medical and non-medical uses. The paper tracks the historical developments that enabled drug trafficking become one of the most feared and notorious illicit industries. From 'Golden Triangle' of South-east Asia to New York, the trade supply chain of illicit drugs became multi-billion with different actors involved in corruption, over the counter sales of cocaine to non-medical users, and substance abuse by younger population. This paper also explains the personal use of licit intoxicants and licit drugs and develops an argument regarding the relationship of personal consumption with historical growth of illicit drug trade.

Research Paper Doctorate

Evolution and development of combat air support in warfare

¶ … Evolution and Development of Combat Air Support

Thesis Doctorate

Political disagreements in defining terrorism across nations and organizations

Terrorism The term "terrorism" is profoundly political, as can be seen by the numerous definitions of terrorism and the lack of a globally-agreed description. Including definitions of "terrorism" from the UN General Assembly, the Arab Convention for the Suppression of Terrorism, the UN Security Council, France, Canada, the U.S. State Department, the U.S. Army, the U.S. Department of Justice, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, among others, this work shows nations struggling to define "terrorism" in self-serving ways. Efforts to clarify and unify those definitions vary from legalistic to nearly bombastic. Examining both formal and informal approaches to unifying definitions, the common thread in both approaches is discovered: the insistence on nations' weighing their competing interests to reach a universal and workable definition

Research Paper Doctorate

Arguments against military intervention in Iraq

Political Science war in Iraq would be dangerous at best, disastrous at worst. It will embolden the terrorist cause and encourage further attacks against the United States and its allies.

Research Paper Doctorate

Lance Janda's thesis on total war origins in the American Civil War

In his thesis, Shutting the Gates of Mercy: The American Origins of Total War, 1860-1880, Lance Janda asserts that the tactics used in the Civil War are the origins of the concept of total war for America.

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