Lt-Gen Benoît Durieux: "Total war forbids any subsequent peace".

Published on :

8 November 2022
Total war is a very topical issue, yet it is a poorly defined concept: absolute war, high-intensity war, major war... Lieutenant General Benoît Durieux, Director of the IHEDN, provides a definition and a few ideas to help us understand it better.

Lt-Gen Benoît Durieux: "Total war forbids any subsequent peace".

Before talking about total war, can you define what war is?

Paradoxically, war is also a means of channelling violence, which has historically been based on a fourfold distinction:

  1. between the military objective of targeting the opposing armed forces and the political objective of influencing the government,
  2. between wartime and peacetime,
  3. between the battlefield and areas sheltered from the violence of the fighting
  4. between combatants and non-combatants.

 

These distinctions have rarely been observed in history. However, if we look at the way in which people have tried to regulate wars, we see that the law and religions have sought to ensure that these separations are respected.

What is total war?

In everyday language, the concept of total war is used to refer to three different dimensions of conflict. Firstly, it is an unlimited objective, aimed at the complete destruction of the adversary, both militarily and politically. Secondly, it involves the mobilisation and often the targeting of all components of the state or society. Finally, it is the intensity of the violence used and the abandonment of all regulation.

Is total war a political or military concept?
Total war is more of a political concept than a military one, because it consists of breaking free from these separations and assuming them politically. Firstly, there is a political objective designed to annihilate the adversary. Secondly, there was an assumed absence of any end to the conflict and of geographical boundaries. Finally, the whole of society is mobilised in the conflict, which also involves the aggression of non-combatants.
Is total war a concept that evolves over time?

Technology raises the question of total war in new terms. Cyber-attacks and remote strikes are no longer confined to the battlefield. Their implementation requires both civilians and military personnel. The development of modern military capabilities relies on industrial, financial and scientific resources that involve the whole of society.

Do you have any examples of total war?

Fortunately, examples of total war are fairly rare. In some respects, the war in Ukraine comes close. It has an almost unlimited objective and involves and targets the population. But it remains a limited war with a prior declaration and a territorial limitation. On the other hand, there are wars that are more or less total, and above all wars that are becoming increasingly total: this is the question of the rise to extremes, because total war is also a dynamic.

How do you describe the success of a total war?

The quest for total war is a failure because it puts politics at the service of war, and prohibits any post-conflict peace.

Which of today's conflicts are likely to evolve into all-out war?

The greatest risk of total war is not between states, but within states. The most convincing examples of total war are civil wars. These are conflicts with unlimited objectives, with no temporal, spatial or social limits. And because intra-state conflicts are most prevalent on Europe's borders, they represent a heightened risk for our continent.