Boeing B-29 Superfortress bombers under construction on an assembly line (public domain image – Wikipedia “Industrial Warfare”)

(12) INDUSTRIAL WARFARE & TOTAL WAR

“Say hello to Ford, and General F…g Motors…You have horses! What were you thinking?”

War in mass – mass conscription, mass mobilization, mass production. Home front and total war.

Economic warfare segues nicely into industrial warfare, the type of warfare that can only be fought by industrialized economies “capable of creating and equipping large armies, navies, and air forces”.

Industrial warfare includes the technology of rapid transport and communication, mechanization and motorization, small arms and machine guns capable of rapid rates of fire, high velocity artillery, mechanized naval warfare, armored warfare, and aerial warfare.

Industrial warfare is virtually synonymous with the concepts of total war and the home front – “where a society’s entire economy, population, and infrastructure are considered part of the war effort…blurring the line between military and civilian”.

Apparently, “the term was coined during World War I by Erich Ludendorff” and it became coupled with “waging warfare with absolute ruthlessness”, including “the reintroduction of civilians and civilian infrastructure as targets in destroying the enemy’s ability to engage in war”. Not coincidentally, it also became coupled with unrestricted warfare – “”unrestricted in terms of the weapons used, the territory or combatants involved, or the objectives pursued, especially one in which the laws of war are disregarded”.