IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - September 2023 - 43

consider contemporary conflicts following the introduction
of the Internet and argue that the ongoing1
Russia-Ukraine War goes beyond the predominantly
" cold wars " of persistent cyberoperation (e.g., North
Korea) and hybrid warfare (e.g., Azerbaijan-Armenia
War). I then review security language used by
representatives of multiple countries and argue that
these comments are evidence of the widespread
adoption of a Total War Metaphor (TWM). Before
concluding, I identify ethical affordances that
are associated with contemporary Total War and
invoked by the TWM.
Evolution of warfare
As human societies have evolved, the focus of
conflict has shifted from interpersonal (e.g., intersex
and intrasex) to intergroup (e.g., tribe and clan) to
international (e.g., countries and alliances). At an
individual level, situational aggression2 often results
from frustration due to a failure to achieve social
goals. Warfare goes beyond aggression in that it
necessitates coordination, social organization, and
intention [16], [17] to achieve societal goals. For
example, Clausewitz claimed that " war is a mere continuation
of policy by other means " [18].
Warfare reflects intergroup (rather than interpersonal)
conflict, with the objects of conflict being
quite general:
" A group activity, carried on by members of one
community against members of another community,
in which it is the primary purpose to inflict
serious injury or death on multiple nonspecified
members of that other community, or in which
the primary purpose makes it highly likely that
serious injury or death will be inflicted on multiple
nonspecified members of that community in the
accomplishment of that primary purpose " [19].
In contrast to the notion of " professionalized warfare "
that assumes there is a special group (i.e., warfighters
such as a profession, class, or caste) within
a society, the above definition leaves the distinction
between soldiers and civilians underspecified,
thereby accommodating the concept of total warfare
[20].
A Total War reflects warfare that includes all material
and human resources of a society wherein boundaries
between combatants and noncombatants,
1At the time of writing.
2In comparison to dispositional aggression.
between battlefields and playing fields are blurred
[21], [22], [23], [24]. For instance, in an early discussion
of the importance of air power, Douhet [25,
p. 61] claims that Total War:
" depend[s] upon smashing the material and
moral resources of a people ... without cease
until the final collapse of all social organization
... the decision will be quick in this kind of war,
since the decisive blows will be directed at civilians
... These future wars may yet prove to be more
humane than wars in the past ... because they
may in the long run shed less blood. But there is
no doubt that nations who find themselves unprepared
to sustain them will be lost. "
During the Second World War, Wheaton [26, p.
171] argued that the combatant-noncombatant distinction
should be abolished in that it was " ... illusory
and immoral. The idea of war as affecting only
certain elements of the population is probably an
incentive to war. " Figure 1 illustrates the basic distinction
between discrete warfare and total warfare
models. The discrete warfare model assumes that,
in any given society, there are basic distinctions
between targets and nontargets, with each comprised
of least three subcategories, that is, financial,
human, and material resources. In contrast, the
Total War model blurs these categories, making all
resources of an adversary targets.3 In the Total War
model, ingroup and outgroup biases provide the
basic distinction, with in-group assets being subdivided
into targets and nontargets, and further subdivided
based on resource subcategories. With the
introduction of cyberwarfare, the interconnectivity
of computer networks surely obscures or eliminates
boundaries between civilian and military resources
and moral agents.
Despite the general assertion that total warfare
is a phenomenon of the 20th century, precedents
exist within the modern era (e.g., Napoleonic Wars
[21]) and antiquity (e.g., Mongols [27, p. 717]).
Understanding the condition for a Total War, therefore,
requires consideration of the context of the
conflict. Consequently, the nature of total warfare
will necessarily change over time based on
the materials, methods, and social arrangements
within contemporary sociotechnological systems.
3It is likely the case given prohibitions on killing humans that these targets might still
be rank-ordered, with financial and material resources deemed the most acceptable
targets and human resources deemed the least acceptable.
September 2023
43

IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - September 2023

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