Poll: How do you define the term "full scale war?"

[Eclectic Dreck]

Sorry but I'd rather keep my humanity, there is no worse single crime in existence than killing a child and I would rather die than do that. Frankly, it's justifications like that which are the reason we still live in a world with genocide and hatred.

This is one of my favorite misconceptions. If you decide that some point is important enough to carry the argument as far as killing people until they eventually agree, you have already ceded your humanity. There is no polite way to kill people. And, to be brutally honest, if you don't believe in your position enough to kill anyone should their death further the cause of your war regardless of age or gender, then I'd say you don't actually think it's worth fighting over. Because, try as you might, it turns out it is really hard to engage in a war where the only casualties are military personnel.

 

[GraveeKing]

Something a bit more than the two stated, there can still be a full-scale war between two or more country's without them actually damaging each other, as an example don't forget Germany occupied and declared war on a lot of country's but Denmark wasn't hurt in the slightest - although the rest was full-scale war.

I think full-scale war also known as 'total' war defines wanting to completely destroy a culture, country and it's people. A fine example was the Americans war against the plains Indians, that was 'total' war (i.e full-scale) simply because they didn't just both mobilize to kill each other - they shot buffalo to starve them, kidnapped their children and put them in schools to change their culture and religion. By the end of it the plains Indian culture was gone and they were no longer a threat in the slightest.

You could also define Nazi-Germany's war' against Jews as a full-scale total war because they did everything in their power to completely remove them. It wasn't just to take over somewhere or get more power - it was total war and nothing but.

That's how I define full-scale war, everything in their power to destroy that culture/people/country.

 

[JoJo]

Sorry but I'd rather keep my humanity, there is no worse single crime in existence than killing a child and I would rather die than do that. Frankly, it's justifications like that which are the reason we still live in a world with genocide and hatred.

This is one of my favorite misconceptions. If you decide that some point is important enough to carry the argument as far as killing people until they eventually agree, you have already ceded your humanity. There is no polite way to kill people. And, to be brutally honest, if you don't believe in your position enough to kill anyone should their death further the cause of your war regardless of age or gender, then I'd say you don't actually think it's worth fighting over. Because, try as you might, it turns out it is really hard to engage in a war where the only casualties are military personnel.

I have no wish to kill anyone, but I do recognise that in certain situations a state has no choice but to defend itself or an ally by using force against another state, including killing enemy soldiers. It would be nice to live a world where no killing was nessecary but as seen in the recent Arab Spring, sometimes for the greater good you must engage in combat. I don't feel that means you lose your humanity, as you are effectively acting in self-defence.

On the other hand, deliberately killing innocent civilians who pose no direct threat to you, particularly children who are no different from those you are fighting to protect, has no justification ever. Accidental deaths are sad and should be avoided as much as possible.