WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.919 Welcome back to the Deep Dive. If you're joining 00:00:02.919 --> 00:00:05.599 us today, we know exactly who you are. Yeah, 00:00:05.759 --> 00:00:07.799 you are the learner. Exactly. You're the kind 00:00:07.799 --> 00:00:11.119 of person who wants to cut through the endless 00:00:11.119 --> 00:00:12.980 noise out there. You want to get straight to 00:00:12.980 --> 00:00:15.320 the core of complex topics. And you want to do 00:00:15.320 --> 00:00:18.120 it without feeling completely overwhelmed by 00:00:18.120 --> 00:00:21.359 just an avalanche of information. Right. Well, 00:00:21.940 --> 00:00:25.780 you were in the right place. Today, We are pointing 00:00:25.780 --> 00:00:28.800 our lens at a massive, incredibly weighty concept. 00:00:29.120 --> 00:00:31.940 We're using a really extensive Wikipedia historical 00:00:31.940 --> 00:00:34.560 overview as our foundation here. Yeah, we're 00:00:34.560 --> 00:00:37.380 looking at the history, the evolution and the 00:00:37.549 --> 00:00:40.450 Honestly, chilling reality of total war. It's 00:00:40.450 --> 00:00:43.329 intense. Very. Our mission for this deep dive 00:00:43.329 --> 00:00:46.630 is to explore how human warfare evolved. We are 00:00:46.630 --> 00:00:48.609 tracking a very specific shift, you know. Right, 00:00:48.609 --> 00:00:51.609 how humanity moved from these isolated battlefield 00:00:51.609 --> 00:00:53.469 skirmishes. Where armies just fought out in a 00:00:53.469 --> 00:00:55.409 field while the rest of the civilian world mostly 00:00:55.409 --> 00:00:57.969 just watched. Yeah, moving from that into these 00:00:57.969 --> 00:01:01.109 all -consuming, just cataclysmic events that 00:01:01.109 --> 00:01:03.570 swallow entire society's economies and populations 00:01:03.570 --> 00:01:05.409 whole. OK, let's unpack this because it is a 00:01:05.409 --> 00:01:08.980 dark topic, undeniably. Oh, absolutely. But what 00:01:08.980 --> 00:01:11.599 I find so deeply compelling and honestly a bit 00:01:11.599 --> 00:01:14.340 surprising is how this incredibly destructive 00:01:14.340 --> 00:01:18.340 concept actually drove some of the most massive 00:01:18.340 --> 00:01:21.299 societal and technological leaps in human history. 00:01:21.420 --> 00:01:23.879 Yeah, it's a huge paradox. So to understand how 00:01:23.879 --> 00:01:26.200 we got there, we first have to define what we're 00:01:26.200 --> 00:01:28.400 actually talking about. Because when historians 00:01:28.400 --> 00:01:30.980 use the term total war, they aren't just talking 00:01:30.980 --> 00:01:33.799 about a really big battle. Right. It's not just 00:01:33.799 --> 00:01:37.439 fighting really hard. No, it's a specific phenomena 00:01:37.439 --> 00:01:39.939 that fundamentally blurs the line between the 00:01:39.939 --> 00:01:42.400 military and the civilian. It's the absolute 00:01:42.400 --> 00:01:45.400 mobilization of all national resources. Every 00:01:45.400 --> 00:01:47.840 single one. And it completely disregards the 00:01:47.840 --> 00:01:50.180 established laws of war, removing traditional 00:01:50.180 --> 00:01:53.099 restrictions. on combatants, weapons, and territory. 00:01:53.219 --> 00:01:55.420 What's fascinating here is the academic framework 00:01:55.420 --> 00:01:57.500 used to really dissect this, because there's 00:01:57.500 --> 00:02:00.379 a scholar named Stig Förster who breaks total 00:02:00.379 --> 00:02:02.939 war down into four distinct dimensions. OK, let's 00:02:02.939 --> 00:02:06.019 hear it. First, you have total purposes. These 00:02:06.019 --> 00:02:08.900 are what historians call hegemonic visions. Let's 00:02:08.900 --> 00:02:10.960 break that down for a second. What does a hegemonic 00:02:10.960 --> 00:02:14.689 vision actually look like in practice? So. Think 00:02:14.689 --> 00:02:17.150 of it like a game of Monopoly, where you aren't 00:02:17.150 --> 00:02:19.289 just trying to win the game, you are trying to 00:02:19.289 --> 00:02:21.949 own the entire board, flip the table, and make 00:02:21.949 --> 00:02:24.729 sure nobody else can even play. Oh, wow. Yeah, 00:02:24.870 --> 00:02:27.270 it's the aim of continuously growing your power 00:02:27.270 --> 00:02:30.490 to absolutely dominate your neighbors. Then the 00:02:30.490 --> 00:02:34.009 second dimension is total methods. Meaning rival 00:02:34.009 --> 00:02:37.449 countries end up adopting similar ruthless tactics 00:02:37.449 --> 00:02:39.789 just to survive against each other. Exactly. 00:02:39.870 --> 00:02:41.729 They basically mirror each other's brutality. 00:02:41.889 --> 00:02:44.050 It's a race to the bottom. It really is. And 00:02:44.050 --> 00:02:46.789 the third dimension is total mobilization. This 00:02:46.789 --> 00:02:49.409 is a massive shift. It means pulling in people 00:02:49.409 --> 00:02:52.830 who are traditionally entirely outside the armed 00:02:52.830 --> 00:02:55.229 forces. But not just soldiers. Right. We were 00:02:55.229 --> 00:02:57.770 talking about women, children, and the elderly 00:02:57.770 --> 00:03:00.229 being drafted into the war machine in various 00:03:00.229 --> 00:03:03.169 capacities. That's intense. And the fourth. The 00:03:03.169 --> 00:03:05.909 fourth is total control. This is where you see 00:03:05.909 --> 00:03:08.770 dictators or oligarchs centralizing their power 00:03:08.770 --> 00:03:11.150 across multiple sectors. Like a total takeover. 00:03:11.370 --> 00:03:13.449 Exactly. They take cross -functional control 00:03:13.449 --> 00:03:16.669 over education, culture, media, the economy, 00:03:16.770 --> 00:03:19.650 and politics. Everything serves the state and 00:03:19.650 --> 00:03:22.509 the war effort. And then there's a fifth dimension 00:03:22.509 --> 00:03:26.030 added by another scholar, Tiziano Petya. He calls 00:03:26.030 --> 00:03:28.789 it total change. I love his description of this. 00:03:28.849 --> 00:03:32.310 It's so good. He says, total war is an earthquake 00:03:32.310 --> 00:03:35.370 that has the world as its epicenter. Yeah. It 00:03:35.370 --> 00:03:37.370 doesn't just impact who wins or loses the fight 00:03:37.370 --> 00:03:41.110 on a map. It fundamentally and permanently alters 00:03:41.110 --> 00:03:43.870 the post -conflict culture, the politics, and 00:03:43.870 --> 00:03:46.129 the technology of the societies involved. It 00:03:46.129 --> 00:03:49.210 completely rewires the world that comes after 00:03:49.210 --> 00:03:51.310 the war. You can't put the genie back in the 00:03:51.310 --> 00:03:52.990 bottle. You really can't. And when you look at 00:03:52.990 --> 00:03:55.490 the actual grim realities on the ground, the 00:03:55.490 --> 00:03:58.469 specific tactics of total war, it is chilling. 00:03:58.669 --> 00:04:01.449 Truly. You see strategic bombing of cities, scorched 00:04:01.449 --> 00:04:04.169 earth policies, where retreating armies their 00:04:04.169 --> 00:04:06.750 own land so the enemy can't use it. Right, unrestricted 00:04:06.750 --> 00:04:09.009 submarine warfare, collective punishment. Forced 00:04:09.009 --> 00:04:11.810 labor and the brutal policy of giving no quarter, 00:04:12.310 --> 00:04:14.509 meaning taking absolutely no prisoners. It is 00:04:14.509 --> 00:04:16.750 the absolute suspension of humanity in the pursuit 00:04:16.750 --> 00:04:18.569 of victory. So where does this come from? Because 00:04:18.569 --> 00:04:22.279 the actual phrase total war is relatively new. 00:04:22.420 --> 00:04:24.740 Yeah, it was coined by a French writer, Léon 00:04:24.740 --> 00:04:29.199 Dada, in 1918. And then it was heavily popularized 00:04:29.199 --> 00:04:31.920 by a German general, Erich Ludendorff, in his 00:04:31.920 --> 00:04:36.339 1935 memoir, literally titled Der Totale Krieg. 00:04:36.519 --> 00:04:38.980 Right. But the practice itself, that has to be 00:04:38.980 --> 00:04:41.519 much older. Oh, absolutely. Historians point 00:04:41.519 --> 00:04:43.759 all the way back to the Middle Ages. The ancient 00:04:43.759 --> 00:04:46.500 Mongols, for instance, practiced a highly effective 00:04:46.500 --> 00:04:49.639 form of total war. They were terrifyingly efficient. 00:04:49.800 --> 00:04:51.819 They didn't just send an army. they organize 00:04:51.819 --> 00:04:55.120 their entire society. as a mobile military machine. 00:04:55.279 --> 00:04:57.480 Every available resource. Military personnel, 00:04:57.740 --> 00:05:00.040 noncombatant workers, intelligence networks, 00:05:00.339 --> 00:05:02.519 transport provisions. Everything was engineered 00:05:02.519 --> 00:05:04.500 toward the absolute destruction and subjugation 00:05:04.500 --> 00:05:06.660 of the enemy. If you resisted the Mongols, they 00:05:06.660 --> 00:05:08.959 didn't just defeat your army, they erased your 00:05:08.959 --> 00:05:11.399 city. Fast forward a few centuries to the 18th 00:05:11.399 --> 00:05:13.360 century, and the French Revolution really kicks 00:05:13.360 --> 00:05:15.759 this concept into high gear on the European continent. 00:05:15.860 --> 00:05:18.759 Right, in 1793. Yeah, facing a massive coalition 00:05:18.759 --> 00:05:20.959 of enemies, the new French Republic instituted 00:05:20.959 --> 00:05:24.579 something called the Lévé en masse. Mass conscription. 00:05:25.160 --> 00:05:27.199 And the scale of this was unprecedented for the 00:05:27.199 --> 00:05:29.759 time. This decree created a fighting force of 00:05:29.759 --> 00:05:32.959 roughly 1 .5 million people. That's a massive 00:05:32.959 --> 00:05:35.980 army for the 1700s. Unheard of. But it wasn't 00:05:35.980 --> 00:05:38.120 just about putting muskets in the hands of young 00:05:38.120 --> 00:05:41.399 men. The decree literally outlined how the entire 00:05:41.399 --> 00:05:44.399 society would function. Right. Married men were 00:05:44.399 --> 00:05:46.740 ordered to forge arms and transport provisions. 00:05:47.319 --> 00:05:49.779 Women were ordered to make tents and serve in 00:05:49.779 --> 00:05:51.720 hospitals. Wait, I remember reading about this. 00:05:51.839 --> 00:05:54.420 Didn't they even mobilize children and the elderly? 00:05:54.600 --> 00:05:57.660 Yes, they did. The decree specifically stated 00:05:57.660 --> 00:06:00.319 that children would turn old lint into linen 00:06:00.319 --> 00:06:03.819 for bandages. Wow. And even old men were ordered 00:06:03.819 --> 00:06:06.339 to go to the public squares to preach hatred 00:06:06.339 --> 00:06:09.779 of kings and boost morale. That is the very definition 00:06:09.779 --> 00:06:12.560 of total mobilization. Every demographic had 00:06:12.560 --> 00:06:15.810 a job. It's the entire society operating as a 00:06:15.810 --> 00:06:18.829 single weapon. And as we move into the 19th century, 00:06:19.129 --> 00:06:20.990 this starts happening more frequently. You see 00:06:20.990 --> 00:06:23.509 it during Napoleon's invasion of Russia in 1812. 00:06:23.910 --> 00:06:26.290 The Russians use a devastating scorched earth 00:06:26.290 --> 00:06:28.329 retreat. Right. They burn their own infrastructure, 00:06:28.529 --> 00:06:30.310 their own agriculture, and eventually even Moscow 00:06:30.310 --> 00:06:32.980 itself purely to starve the French army. You 00:06:32.980 --> 00:06:35.620 also had the grueling Peninsula War in Spain 00:06:35.620 --> 00:06:38.339 and Portugal, which tied down hundreds of thousands 00:06:38.339 --> 00:06:41.139 of French troops against a massive, unrelenting 00:06:41.139 --> 00:06:43.860 civilian insurgency. And it wasn't just a European 00:06:43.860 --> 00:06:46.060 phenomenon either. Not at all. Look at South 00:06:46.060 --> 00:06:49.500 America. The Paraguayan War, which ran from 1864 00:06:49.500 --> 00:06:53.279 to 1870, is widely cited by historians as the 00:06:53.279 --> 00:06:56.860 first true total war in the Americas. Paraguay's 00:06:56.860 --> 00:06:59.920 leader mobilized almost the entire male population 00:06:59.920 --> 00:07:03.439 to fight an alliance of Argentina, Brazil, Exactly. 00:07:04.600 --> 00:07:07.079 The entire society and economy were structured 00:07:07.079 --> 00:07:10.100 around a vision of either absolute victory or 00:07:10.100 --> 00:07:12.019 utter defeat. And the result was catastrophic. 00:07:12.339 --> 00:07:14.500 Completely. Paraguay suffered a staggering loss 00:07:14.500 --> 00:07:17.120 of life. Some estimates suggest they lost over 00:07:17.120 --> 00:07:19.759 half their total population and the vast majority 00:07:19.759 --> 00:07:22.339 of their adult men. It was an all consuming conflict. 00:07:22.540 --> 00:07:24.279 Which naturally brings us to the U .S. Civil 00:07:24.279 --> 00:07:27.220 War and specifically General William Tecumseh 00:07:27.220 --> 00:07:30.220 Sherman's infamous march to the sea across Georgia 00:07:30.220 --> 00:07:32.879 in 1864. Yeah, Sherman actually wrote a letter 00:07:32.879 --> 00:07:35.160 to his chief of staff defending the destruction. 00:07:35.519 --> 00:07:37.259 He said that the union was not only fighting 00:07:37.259 --> 00:07:40.459 hostile armies, but also people. Right. He famously 00:07:40.459 --> 00:07:43.269 wrote that he must make old and young. rich and 00:07:43.269 --> 00:07:46.529 poor feel the hard hand of war. It was a brutal 00:07:46.529 --> 00:07:49.470 psychological and logistical campaign. But wait, 00:07:49.610 --> 00:07:51.810 let me push back on this for a second. I've read 00:07:51.810 --> 00:07:54.389 that Sherman actually ordered his men to largely 00:07:54.389 --> 00:07:57.269 spare civilian homes. That's true, yeah. So if 00:07:57.269 --> 00:07:59.629 he's actively trying to avoid killing civilians 00:07:59.629 --> 00:08:03.129 in their houses, does that really qualify as 00:08:03.129 --> 00:08:06.069 a true total war under the academic definition? 00:08:06.410 --> 00:08:08.569 That is a great question, and it's actually a 00:08:08.569 --> 00:08:11.689 point of major historical debate. Many purists 00:08:11.689 --> 00:08:15.170 argue it wasn't a true total war precisely because 00:08:15.170 --> 00:08:17.430 he didn't systematically slaughter civilians. 00:08:17.529 --> 00:08:19.839 Okay, so why include it? Well, the reason it 00:08:19.839 --> 00:08:21.920 often gets included in this category is because 00:08:21.920 --> 00:08:24.600 of its focus on infrastructure. Sherman's troops 00:08:24.600 --> 00:08:27.839 destroyed railroads, burned crops, and dynamated 00:08:27.839 --> 00:08:30.860 the South's economic capacity to sustain the 00:08:30.860 --> 00:08:33.139 war effort. So it laid the psychological and 00:08:33.139 --> 00:08:35.500 tactical groundwork for what was coming. Exactly. 00:08:35.720 --> 00:08:37.899 It proved that targeting the enemy's ability 00:08:37.899 --> 00:08:40.799 to produce and transport goods was just as effective 00:08:40.799 --> 00:08:42.879 as shooting at their soldiers. Here's where it 00:08:42.879 --> 00:08:46.409 gets really interesting. World War I. This is 00:08:46.409 --> 00:08:49.009 where the sheer force of the Industrial Revolution 00:08:49.009 --> 00:08:52.169 meets the battlefield, and it creates the ultimate 00:08:52.169 --> 00:08:56.009 prototype for modern total war. A major turning 00:08:56.009 --> 00:08:59.240 point here was the advent of air warfare. Suddenly, 00:08:59.379 --> 00:09:01.220 the front lines didn't matter in the same way. 00:09:01.440 --> 00:09:03.200 You didn't have to march an army through the 00:09:03.200 --> 00:09:05.059 mud to hurt your enemy anymore. You could just 00:09:05.059 --> 00:09:07.820 fly over them. There was a commander of German 00:09:07.820 --> 00:09:10.519 Imperial Navy zeppelins named Peter Strasser. 00:09:10.779 --> 00:09:13.519 Right. He orchestrated strategic bombing campaigns 00:09:13.519 --> 00:09:16.580 across Europe and the UK, intentionally dropping 00:09:16.580 --> 00:09:19.340 bombs from these massive airships onto cities 00:09:19.340 --> 00:09:21.820 and civilians. And his justification for this 00:09:21.820 --> 00:09:24.769 was a chilling reflection of the new era. He 00:09:24.769 --> 00:09:27.450 essentially argued that in modern warfare there 00:09:27.450 --> 00:09:30.070 is no such thing as a non -combatant. Because 00:09:30.070 --> 00:09:32.610 if a civilian is making the bullets, Strasser's 00:09:32.610 --> 00:09:34.409 logic is that the civilian is just a different 00:09:34.409 --> 00:09:36.750 kind of soldier. Precisely. Right. If they are 00:09:36.750 --> 00:09:39.250 part of the war machine, they are a target. And 00:09:39.250 --> 00:09:41.470 to make sure those civilians back home kept making 00:09:41.470 --> 00:09:43.889 those bullets and kept their morale up, governments 00:09:43.889 --> 00:09:46.490 realized they had to seize control of the public 00:09:46.490 --> 00:09:49.230 mind. The birth of the modern propaganda machine. 00:09:49.570 --> 00:09:51.980 Exactly. On the home front, particularly in the 00:09:51.980 --> 00:09:55.120 UK, the government took total control of the 00:09:55.120 --> 00:09:57.779 narrative. They plastered cities with government 00:09:57.779 --> 00:10:00.379 posters. They controlled what people ate through 00:10:00.379 --> 00:10:03.100 rationing, and they dictated what jobs people 00:10:03.100 --> 00:10:05.460 could take. They even infiltrated entertainment, 00:10:06.259 --> 00:10:09.039 using music halls to push propaganda songs aimed 00:10:09.039 --> 00:10:12.600 at recruitment. Society had to be kept in a state 00:10:12.600 --> 00:10:15.539 of constant fervent support for the war. And 00:10:15.539 --> 00:10:18.360 the economy had to completely pivot. I was reading 00:10:18.360 --> 00:10:21.539 about the shell crisis of 1915 in Britain. Am 00:10:21.539 --> 00:10:23.519 I understanding this correctly? Did the British 00:10:23.519 --> 00:10:25.940 military literally just run out of artillery 00:10:25.940 --> 00:10:28.559 shells in the middle of a global war? They absolutely 00:10:28.559 --> 00:10:31.100 did. And it caused a massive political scandal. 00:10:31.139 --> 00:10:34.039 It forced the creation of an entirely new government 00:10:34.039 --> 00:10:36.879 department, the Ministry of Munitions under David 00:10:36.879 --> 00:10:39.799 Lloyd George. Wow. That moment proved that you 00:10:39.799 --> 00:10:41.860 couldn't just rely on the free market and private 00:10:41.860 --> 00:10:43.559 companies doing their own thing during a total 00:10:43.559 --> 00:10:46.620 war. The government had to step in and forcefully 00:10:46.620 --> 00:10:49.679 gear the entire economy toward producing weapons. 00:10:49.940 --> 00:10:51.879 And of course, if all your factories are making 00:10:51.879 --> 00:10:54.059 shells and all your farmers are in the trenches, 00:10:54.360 --> 00:10:56.879 you run out of food. Severe rationing became 00:10:56.879 --> 00:10:59.519 the norm. British and German food production 00:10:59.519 --> 00:11:03.220 plummeted. The British Royal Navy blockaded German 00:11:03.220 --> 00:11:06.220 ports, intentionally trying to starve the civilian 00:11:06.220 --> 00:11:09.240 population to hasten their surrender. And the 00:11:09.240 --> 00:11:12.340 sheer scale of manpower mobilization was staggering. 00:11:12.919 --> 00:11:16.360 Consider Bulgaria during World War I. They mobilized 00:11:16.360 --> 00:11:19.440 25 % of their entire population. Just wrap your 00:11:19.440 --> 00:11:21.820 mind around that. One in four people in the entire 00:11:21.820 --> 00:11:25.120 country actively mobilized for war. And to achieve 00:11:25.120 --> 00:11:27.840 that scale of mobilization, you need a very specific 00:11:27.840 --> 00:11:30.460 and usually very oppressive kind of government. 00:11:30.980 --> 00:11:33.000 There's a political theorist named Carl Schmitt 00:11:33.000 --> 00:11:35.480 who wrote about this concept of total politics. 00:11:36.159 --> 00:11:38.580 Schmitt argued that an authoritarian total state, 00:11:38.740 --> 00:11:41.399 one that exerts direct unquestioned control over 00:11:41.399 --> 00:11:44.620 the press, the economy and social life, is an 00:11:44.620 --> 00:11:47.059 absolute prerequisite to fighting a total war. 00:11:47.320 --> 00:11:49.759 Because you simply cannot mobilize a society 00:11:49.759 --> 00:11:52.460 to that extreme degree if the state doesn't have 00:11:52.460 --> 00:11:55.159 total authority to force people to comply. Which 00:11:55.159 --> 00:11:57.820 perfectly sets the stage for World War II. If 00:11:57.820 --> 00:12:01.100 World War I was the industrial prototype, World 00:12:01.100 --> 00:12:04.100 War II represents the absolute peak of the concept. 00:12:04.899 --> 00:12:08.419 It is the quintessential total war of modernity. 00:12:08.600 --> 00:12:11.639 The unprecedented scale, the multi -continental 00:12:11.639 --> 00:12:14.580 battle space, the active targeting of civilians, 00:12:14.899 --> 00:12:17.799 it is almost unfathomable. Let's look at how 00:12:17.799 --> 00:12:20.100 this played out in the United Kingdom. They had 00:12:20.100 --> 00:12:22.879 learned the harsh lessons of World War I. They 00:12:22.879 --> 00:12:25.940 immediately instituted rationing and legal blackouts, 00:12:26.240 --> 00:12:28.539 forcing everyone to cover their windows so German 00:12:28.539 --> 00:12:30.799 bombers couldn't see city lights at night. But 00:12:30.799 --> 00:12:33.080 it was a manpower shift that was so dramatic. 00:12:33.580 --> 00:12:35.980 Not only were men conscripted immediately, but 00:12:35.980 --> 00:12:38.679 women were heavily conscripted as land girls 00:12:38.679 --> 00:12:40.960 to run the agricultural sector. Right, and young 00:12:40.960 --> 00:12:43.259 men known as Bevan boys were conscripted to work 00:12:43.259 --> 00:12:45.179 down in the coal mines to keep the power grid 00:12:45.179 --> 00:12:47.169 running. Winston Churchill actually summed it 00:12:47.169 --> 00:12:49.710 up perfectly. He said, the front line runs through 00:12:49.710 --> 00:12:52.450 the factories. The workmen are soldiers with 00:12:52.450 --> 00:12:54.730 different weapons, but the same courage. And 00:12:54.730 --> 00:12:57.929 we is a profound consequence of that mobilization, 00:12:58.169 --> 00:13:00.970 tying right back to Tiziano Petsch's fifth dimension 00:13:00.970 --> 00:13:02.669 of total change that we talked about earlier. 00:13:02.769 --> 00:13:05.450 The earthquake. Yes. Because of the threat of 00:13:05.450 --> 00:13:08.169 German bombing raids on industrial centers, the 00:13:08.169 --> 00:13:10.409 British government enacted a massive evacuation 00:13:10.409 --> 00:13:13.850 of children. Right, millions of kids put on trains 00:13:13.850 --> 00:13:16.289 with little name tags sent away from their parents. 00:13:16.789 --> 00:13:19.129 Think about the social impact of that. You had 00:13:19.129 --> 00:13:22.049 children from deep urban squalor and extreme 00:13:22.049 --> 00:13:24.990 poverty in places like London suddenly billeted 00:13:24.990 --> 00:13:27.789 in middle and upper -class rural households in 00:13:27.789 --> 00:13:30.090 the countryside. For the first time in modern 00:13:30.090 --> 00:13:33.009 history, these incredibly rigid British social 00:13:33.009 --> 00:13:35.450 classes were forced to mix in their own homes. 00:13:35.769 --> 00:13:38.230 The affluent classes saw the reality of urban 00:13:38.230 --> 00:13:40.570 poverty firsthand through these children, and 00:13:40.570 --> 00:13:43.429 the urban kids experienced life outside the slums. 00:13:43.789 --> 00:13:45.809 Historians note that this permanently altered 00:13:45.809 --> 00:13:48.610 British society. It laid the emotional and political 00:13:48.610 --> 00:13:51.529 groundwork for the post -war welfare state. Wow. 00:13:51.759 --> 00:13:54.139 Let's just sit with that for a second. So a desperate 00:13:54.139 --> 00:13:56.600 military defense tactic, just trying to keep 00:13:56.600 --> 00:13:59.100 kids safe from bombs, accidentally shattered 00:13:59.100 --> 00:14:01.299 the British class system, and essentially helped 00:14:01.299 --> 00:14:04.100 build the modern social safety net. That entirely 00:14:04.100 --> 00:14:06.480 proves that fifth dimension of total change. 00:14:07.000 --> 00:14:09.799 The war ends, but the society is forever altered. 00:14:10.440 --> 00:14:12.399 Now, contrast that British mobilization with 00:14:12.399 --> 00:14:14.919 Nazi Germany. Because looking at the history, 00:14:15.240 --> 00:14:18.129 there's a genuinely surprising fact. Germany 00:14:18.129 --> 00:14:21.450 was actually quite late to embrace a total war 00:14:21.450 --> 00:14:23.870 economy. Which seems entirely counterintuitive, 00:14:24.129 --> 00:14:25.629 right? Given their aggression, you'd think they'd 00:14:25.629 --> 00:14:27.769 be fully mobilized from day one. Completely. 00:14:28.029 --> 00:14:31.110 But the military and Nazi leadership deeply believed 00:14:31.110 --> 00:14:33.690 in the World War I stab in the back myth. They 00:14:33.690 --> 00:14:36.230 convinced themselves they lost the first war 00:14:36.230 --> 00:14:38.669 because the home front collapsed and civilians 00:14:38.669 --> 00:14:41.620 gave up. Not because the military failed. So 00:14:41.620 --> 00:14:44.139 to keep morale high, they tried to keep the German 00:14:44.139 --> 00:14:46.740 civilian population comfortable for as long as 00:14:46.740 --> 00:14:50.159 possible. They relied on the Blitzkrieg short 00:14:50.159 --> 00:14:52.759 lightning fast military campaigns so they wouldn't 00:14:52.759 --> 00:14:54.960 have to fully mobilize the economy and adore 00:14:54.960 --> 00:14:57.679 rationing. They delayed that mobilization for 00:14:57.679 --> 00:15:00.480 years. He really did. It wasn't until the absolute 00:15:00.480 --> 00:15:03.080 failure of Operation Barbarossa and their massive 00:15:03.080 --> 00:15:05.679 defeat at the Battle of Moscow that they realized 00:15:05.679 --> 00:15:09.000 they were trapped in a long grueling war of attrition. 00:15:09.240 --> 00:15:13.700 It took until February 1943 for propaganda minister 00:15:13.700 --> 00:15:16.779 Joseph Goebbels to stand up at the Berlin Sport 00:15:16.779 --> 00:15:20.179 Palace and famously scream to the crowd, asking 00:15:20.179 --> 00:15:23.779 them if they wanted total war. Meanwhile, on 00:15:23.779 --> 00:15:25.980 the Eastern Front, the Soviet Union was already 00:15:25.980 --> 00:15:28.440 operating as a relentless total war machine. 00:15:29.059 --> 00:15:31.720 And this was largely because the USSR was a command 00:15:31.720 --> 00:15:34.259 economy. Let's clarify that for a second. How 00:15:34.259 --> 00:15:35.980 does a command economy differ from what we're 00:15:35.980 --> 00:15:38.669 used to? Unlike a free market where private businesses 00:15:38.669 --> 00:15:40.669 decide what to make based on consumer demand, 00:15:41.169 --> 00:15:43.090 a command economy means the government dictates 00:15:43.090 --> 00:15:45.490 exactly what is produced, how much is produced, 00:15:45.769 --> 00:15:48.830 and by whom. So the Soviets already had the legal 00:15:48.830 --> 00:15:51.529 and economic system in place to instantly redirect 00:15:51.529 --> 00:15:53.470 everything toward the war effort. As the Germans 00:15:53.470 --> 00:15:56.259 advanced, The Soviets executed an astonishing 00:15:56.259 --> 00:15:59.299 logistical feat. They literally physically dismantled 00:15:59.299 --> 00:16:01.519 their factories, packed the heavy machinery onto 00:16:01.519 --> 00:16:04.399 trains, and moved entire labor forces hundreds 00:16:04.399 --> 00:16:06.740 of miles east of the Ural Mountains out of bomber 00:16:06.740 --> 00:16:09.340 range just to keep producing weapons. So how 00:16:09.340 --> 00:16:11.679 did the Soviets counter the German advance on 00:16:11.679 --> 00:16:13.419 the ground? I imagine their production had to 00:16:13.419 --> 00:16:15.879 go into absolute overdrive. Overdrive doesn't 00:16:15.879 --> 00:16:19.029 even begin to cover it. At the Battle of Stalingrad, 00:16:19.529 --> 00:16:21.870 the Soviet commitment to production was so intense 00:16:21.870 --> 00:16:25.250 that newly built T -34 tanks were being driven 00:16:25.250 --> 00:16:27.950 straight off the factory floor, directly into 00:16:27.950 --> 00:16:30.769 combat. You're kidding. Straight into the battle? 00:16:31.009 --> 00:16:32.870 Literally out the factory doors and into the 00:16:32.870 --> 00:16:34.970 line of fire. They didn't even have time to paint 00:16:34.970 --> 00:16:37.750 them. Unpainted tanks rolling into a war zone. 00:16:38.110 --> 00:16:40.929 Unbelievable. But the human cost of that Soviet 00:16:40.929 --> 00:16:43.919 machine was beyond comprehension. The historical 00:16:43.919 --> 00:16:46.919 record estimates that 27 million Soviet citizens 00:16:46.919 --> 00:16:49.740 died during the war. 27 million. It's a number 00:16:49.740 --> 00:16:52.940 so huge it almost loses its meaning. It's just 00:16:52.940 --> 00:16:54.720 devastating. And then on the other side of the 00:16:54.720 --> 00:16:57.360 world you had the United States waking up as 00:16:57.360 --> 00:17:00.179 an unprecedented industrial juggernaut. After 00:17:00.179 --> 00:17:02.700 Pearl Harbor, the U .S. mobilized on a scale 00:17:02.700 --> 00:17:05.940 the world had never seen. Academics became government 00:17:05.940 --> 00:17:08.700 technocrats. Millions of homemakers went into 00:17:08.700 --> 00:17:11.140 factories to build bombers and tanks. The productivity 00:17:11.140 --> 00:17:14.289 was absurd. They were routinely building multi 00:17:14.289 --> 00:17:17.130 -thousand ton convoy ships, Liberty ships, in 00:17:17.130 --> 00:17:19.170 a matter of weeks, sometimes in a month and a 00:17:19.170 --> 00:17:22.349 half. And nothing was wasted. Civilians and children 00:17:22.349 --> 00:17:24.970 were doing scrap metal drives. Homemakers were 00:17:24.970 --> 00:17:27.210 saving cooking fat and grease to be repurposed 00:17:27.210 --> 00:17:29.549 for explosives. The massive scientific communities 00:17:29.549 --> 00:17:32.049 were mobilized, culminating, of course, in the 00:17:32.049 --> 00:17:34.309 Manhattan Project and the birth of the atomic 00:17:34.309 --> 00:17:36.890 age. You contrast that American industrial drive 00:17:36.890 --> 00:17:39.950 with Imperial Japan, who passed a state general 00:17:39.950 --> 00:17:42.589 mobilization law that gave their government unlimited 00:17:42.589 --> 00:17:45.490 control over civilian organizations and unions. 00:17:45.730 --> 00:17:49.230 And to fuel their war machine. Japan utilized 00:17:49.230 --> 00:17:52.829 forced labor on a horrifying scale. They pressed 00:17:52.829 --> 00:17:56.069 over 18 million people in East Asia into forced 00:17:56.069 --> 00:17:59.250 labor, alongside millions of brutalized slave 00:17:59.250 --> 00:18:02.180 laborers. And because of the sheer, all -encompassing 00:18:02.180 --> 00:18:05.660 scale of this global total war, it couldn't end 00:18:05.660 --> 00:18:08.039 with a traditional sit -down treaty. President 00:18:08.039 --> 00:18:10.279 Franklin D. Roosevelt declared at the Casablanca 00:18:10.279 --> 00:18:12.640 conference that the allies would only accept 00:18:12.640 --> 00:18:14.859 unconditional surrender. Right. No negotiations, 00:18:15.000 --> 00:18:17.180 no compromise. Exactly. And this created a highly 00:18:17.180 --> 00:18:20.339 unique legal situation. Because the Axis regimes 00:18:20.339 --> 00:18:22.440 didn't just surrender, they completely collapsed. 00:18:22.779 --> 00:18:24.960 A legal condition known in international law 00:18:24.960 --> 00:18:28.420 as debilatio. Debilatio. OK. What does that actually 00:18:28.420 --> 00:18:31.380 mean in practice? Think of it like a state completely 00:18:31.380 --> 00:18:34.559 evaporating into thin air. There is no surviving 00:18:34.559 --> 00:18:37.140 legitimate government left to negotiate a peace 00:18:37.140 --> 00:18:39.519 treaty with. Because the state itself ceased 00:18:39.519 --> 00:18:42.819 to exist, the Allies essentially became the governing 00:18:42.819 --> 00:18:45.940 law. And that unprecedented total defeat laid 00:18:45.940 --> 00:18:48.640 the specific legal groundwork necessary for the 00:18:48.640 --> 00:18:51.220 Allies to prosecute individuals for war crimes, 00:18:51.619 --> 00:18:54.039 which led to the post -war Nuremberg trials. 00:18:54.559 --> 00:18:57.140 Total war leading to total defeat. which ushers 00:18:57.140 --> 00:18:59.619 us right into the nuclear age and modern conflicts 00:18:59.619 --> 00:19:02.799 because the invention of atomic weapons fundamentally 00:19:02.799 --> 00:19:05.660 changed the calculus of war forever. U .S. Air 00:19:05.660 --> 00:19:08.420 Force General Curtis LeMay took the concept of 00:19:08.420 --> 00:19:11.099 total war and updated it for the nuclear age. 00:19:11.640 --> 00:19:13.980 His proposal was essentially deliver the entire 00:19:13.980 --> 00:19:16.480 nuclear arsenal in a single overwhelming blow. 00:19:16.619 --> 00:19:18.759 His exact words were to go as far as killing 00:19:18.759 --> 00:19:21.109 a nation. If we connect this to the bigger picture, 00:19:21.210 --> 00:19:23.569 it explains exactly why we haven't seen a massive 00:19:23.569 --> 00:19:26.170 industrial total war between major world powers 00:19:26.170 --> 00:19:29.529 since 1945. Nuclear weapons made it logistically 00:19:29.529 --> 00:19:32.329 impractical and strategically suicidal. By the 00:19:32.329 --> 00:19:34.990 1950s, we entered the era of mutually assured 00:19:34.990 --> 00:19:37.829 destruction or M .I .D. Because if you launch 00:19:37.829 --> 00:19:39.509 your missiles, they launch their missiles and 00:19:39.509 --> 00:19:42.690 everybody loses. Exactly. As Soviet premier Nikita 00:19:42.690 --> 00:19:45.390 Khrushchev is widely quoted as saying, in the 00:19:45.390 --> 00:19:48.410 event of a nuclear war, the living will envy 00:19:48.410 --> 00:19:51.930 the dead. So the superpowers had to pivot. Instead 00:19:51.930 --> 00:19:53.990 of fighting each other directly in a catastrophic 00:19:53.990 --> 00:19:57.210 total war, they fought proxy wars in places like 00:19:57.210 --> 00:19:59.829 Vietnam and Afghanistan. Now it's important to 00:19:59.829 --> 00:20:02.329 look at how academics classify modern conflicts 00:20:02.329 --> 00:20:05.609 today. Researchers point to several post -WWII 00:20:05.609 --> 00:20:09.009 regional conflicts, like the 1948 Arab -Israeli 00:20:09.009 --> 00:20:12.029 War, the Iran -Iraq War in the 1980s, the Russo 00:20:12.029 --> 00:20:14.869 -Ukrainian War, and the Gaza War, and classify 00:20:14.869 --> 00:20:17.400 them under this total war umbrella. Yeah. And 00:20:17.400 --> 00:20:19.180 to be clear, as we look at this, we aren't here 00:20:19.180 --> 00:20:21.279 to weigh in on the heavy politics or take sides 00:20:21.279 --> 00:20:24.099 on these deeply complex and tragic conflicts. 00:20:24.539 --> 00:20:26.480 We're purely looking at this through the academic 00:20:26.480 --> 00:20:28.680 lens of our sources, how the immense scale of 00:20:28.680 --> 00:20:30.619 mobilization, the targeting of infrastructure, 00:20:30.720 --> 00:20:33.039 and the blurring of civilian and military lines 00:20:33.039 --> 00:20:35.599 fit the historical definitions of total war we've 00:20:35.599 --> 00:20:38.039 been talking about. It shows that while a global 00:20:38.039 --> 00:20:40.460 World War Two style conflict involving all the 00:20:40.460 --> 00:20:43.759 major powers hasn't happened since 1945, the 00:20:43.759 --> 00:20:47.240 grim methodologies of total war, the full mobilization 00:20:47.240 --> 00:20:50.240 of populations and economies still very much 00:20:50.240 --> 00:20:52.980 persist in regional conflicts today. So what 00:20:52.980 --> 00:20:55.119 does this all mean? When you look back at all 00:20:55.119 --> 00:20:58.299 these sources, total war reveals itself as the 00:20:58.299 --> 00:21:00.880 ultimate paradox of human history. It really 00:21:00.880 --> 00:21:03.579 does. On one hand, it represents the darkest, 00:21:03.839 --> 00:21:06.859 most destructive capacities of humanity. It is 00:21:06.859 --> 00:21:09.500 the complete erasure of the line between soldier 00:21:09.500 --> 00:21:12.359 and civilian. But on the other hand, it has acted 00:21:12.359 --> 00:21:15.460 as this bizarre, undeniable catalyst for massive 00:21:15.460 --> 00:21:18.259 leaps forward. Unprecedented advances in medicine, 00:21:18.599 --> 00:21:20.599 engineering, physics, and even social equality 00:21:20.599 --> 00:21:23.039 were forged in the sheer desperation of total 00:21:23.039 --> 00:21:24.920 war. It's important to recognize how much of 00:21:24.920 --> 00:21:27.599 your daily life is shaped by this history. For 00:21:27.599 --> 00:21:29.660 the nuclear energy that might power your home, 00:21:29.980 --> 00:21:32.279 to the structure of modern social welfare systems 00:21:32.279 --> 00:21:34.779 we discussed, to the very technology and jet 00:21:34.779 --> 00:21:37.349 engines we use to travel. So much of it is the 00:21:37.349 --> 00:21:39.509 direct fallout of societies that were forced 00:21:39.509 --> 00:21:42.049 to totally mobilize, centralize, and innovate 00:21:42.049 --> 00:21:44.589 for their sheer survival. It's a heavy, heavy 00:21:44.589 --> 00:21:47.450 legacy to inherit. It is. And this raises an 00:21:47.450 --> 00:21:48.750 important question, something for you to think 00:21:48.750 --> 00:21:52.009 about as you go about your day. If the core of 00:21:52.009 --> 00:21:55.710 total war is ultimately about the complete centralization, 00:21:56.009 --> 00:21:58.670 mobilization, and control of a society's information, 00:21:58.849 --> 00:22:01.849 its industry, and its people, could a modern 00:22:01.849 --> 00:22:04.690 society ever find itself pushed into a state 00:22:04.690 --> 00:22:08.930 of total war by a massive technological, economic, 00:22:09.049 --> 00:22:12.190 or environmental crisis without a single shot 00:22:12.190 --> 00:22:15.089 ever being fired? That is a fascinating and terrifying 00:22:15.089 --> 00:22:17.849 thought. A total mobilization for survival against 00:22:17.849 --> 00:22:20.440 a changing climate or a collapsed global grid. 00:22:20.779 --> 00:22:22.680 We will leave you with that to mull over. Thank 00:22:22.680 --> 00:22:25.200 you for joining us on this deep dive. Keep cutting 00:22:25.200 --> 00:22:27.339 through the noise, keep questioning assumptions, 00:22:27.599 --> 00:22:29.559 and most importantly, keep learning. We'll get 00:22:29.559 --> 00:22:30.039 you next time.