total war

is no longer war waged by all members of one national community against all those of another. Today it is 'total' in the sense that it may well involve the whole world.

Total war is no longer war waged by all members of one national community against all those of another. It is total. . . because it may well involve the whole world. Jean-Paul Sartre

Total war is the most humane in the long run.

is the age in which the power of a single weapon is so great that no distance can protect you from it any longer

In Virilio's own words, 'The bunker is the proto-history of an age in which the power of a single weapon is so great that no distance can protect you from it any longer' (Virilio 1994a: 46). p.76-7

is the condition whereby, with the areal bombardment of the cities, the entire space of the civilian and urban environment becomes a potential target and when nowhere appears safe from the risk of military attack.

It is at work in the Nazi aspirations to a Fortress Europe, a homogenized and militarized living space at the disposal of the German people, and it is, of course, clearly proclaimed in the rhetoric of Totalkrieg used by the regime during the height of the conflict (e.g. in Goebbels's appeal for the waging of total war in his speech and radio broadcast of February 1943). In the sense most explicitly invoked by Virilio the Second World War is a total war when, with the aerial bombing of the cities, the entire space of the civilian and urban environment becomes a potential target and when nowhere appears safe from the risk of military attack. p.76

total war, n.All

total war