Modern Warfare: From the Brutality of "Total War" to peace under the Balance of Nuclear Terror

The highly developed modern productive forces and science and technology have enabled the overshoot development of weapons, equipment and tactical means, and a modern fighter has a ground attack power that exceeds that of the entire air force wing in the era of World War II. (Li Qiao/Photo)

The historical development process of Europe is different from that of the East, in terms of politics and military, until modern times, it has developed into a Warring States era similar to the East, marked by the "Thirty Years' War", when the European powers tried to become empires and began to work in the direction of "unifying Europe".

However, the delusion of "unifying Europe" is not within the reach of ordinary "noble wars and the strength of the princes", and it requires super force. By the late 19th century, after German reunification, with the development of German military power and the expansion of imperial ambitions, General Von Ludendorff, the first quartermaster general of the German army (equivalent to the deputy chief of the general staff), put forward the idea of "total war".

The theory is roughly: the entire country and society, completely packaged as a war machine, forcing everyone to participate in the war in various forms (or as a soldier, or production, similar to the Qin government's "farming war"), and the whole people working together to push the country and the whole society into the hell of destructive war in order to pursue the ultimate war purpose. This purpose is no longer a game of limited interests, or even to stop at the success or defeat of the king, but must pursue the complete defeat of the opponent, the destruction of the country, the destruction of the society, the extermination of the society, and even the genocide.

Under the guidance of the idea of "total war", Germany launched two world wars in just over thirty years, causing hundreds of millions of casualties to mankind, making the first half of the 20th century, which was highly developed in science and technology and productive forces, one of the darkest, barbaric, brutal and terrifying eras in human history. Nazi war criminal Hans Frank confessed before his execution: the millennium is easy to pass, and Germany's sins are indelible.

The legacy of this barbaric and brutal pattern of warfare, from the holocaust and concentration camps, to the 1990s, saw tens of thousands, if not millions, of genocide massacres in rwanda's civil war and in many sectarian wars.

The highly developed modern productive forces and science and technology have enabled the overshoot development of weapons, equipment and tactical means, and a modern fighter has a ground attack power that exceeds that of the entire air force wing in the era of World War II. The opposing camp, each with thousands of fighters, is full of malice toward each other, waiting for each other and looking at the tiger.

Nuclear weapons are even more frightening, and the world now has about 15,000 nuclear warheads in the five nuclear powers, compared with more than 60,000 at the peak of the "Cold War" in the early 1980s. One strategic nuclear submarine can carry hundreds of nuclear warheads, and one can cripple the world's most powerful country, and in the world, there are about 47 strategic nuclear submarines with such destructive capabilities.

If human military thinking continues to continue the strategy and tactics developed from ancient times, then the next "total war", as long as a part of the nuclear force is used, the result is not the question of who wins and who loses, who wins and who wins, but the end of the extinction of the human species, the return to the era of geological history, and the restart of biological evolution.

Misfortune, where blessings depend; no pole Tai Lai; the dragon has remorse... The real world is full of this kind of dark humor-like philosophical weirdness. It is precisely nuclear weapons, the ultimate means of destruction, that force the political and military leadership of major powers to think calmly about the possibility of devastating war, as well as the future of themselves and their families... This is the kind of issue that concerns vital interests.

In the 1950s and 1960s, the nuclear weapons of the two superpowers of the United States and the Soviet Union were developed to a level that was enough to completely eliminate the other side and its entire camp several times, but neither could ensure that the other side's nuclear counterattack force was completely eliminated in an instant, so as to avoid being retaliatory nuclear strikes by the other side.

Because both oneself and the other city are huge and fixed targets, nuclear weapons are very easy to destroy. In modern society, the urbanization rate is as high as 80%-90%, as long as the "nuclear level" of the city, it is not only the subjugation of the country, or even the extinction of species, the few (temporary) survivors, how many people can escape the subsequent "nuclear winter" and the "nuclear war world" in which the productive forces are completely destroyed?

The submarine-launched missiles of themselves and the enemy are hidden targets with strong mobility and concealment, and it is impossible to sink them all in a very short period of time, so it is impossible to completely deprive the other side of its nuclear counterattack capability.

Therefore, the end of a large-scale nuclear war can only be the end of the same. Therefore, the military circles have formed the basic view that "there is no winner in nuclear war".

Based on this basic view, the Eisenhower administration proposed a "balanced strategy for nuclear terror." This means that the opposing camp, based on the fear of each other's nuclear arsenals, does not dare to launch a nuclear war easily, so that the two sides can maintain a long-term state of balance and confrontation on the basis of "nuclear terror", and thus maintain a lasting peace.

The Soviet leadership also understood this truth in their hearts, and since the US political leadership had thoroughly explained this consensus and the window paper had been broken, it immediately pushed the boat along the water and opened a high-level meeting between Khrushchev and US President Kennedy to directly interview the common rules of conduct on the basis of the "nuclear terror balance" to avoid nuclear accidents and nuclear disasters.

In the 1980s, Thatcher's speech further elaborated on the "nuclear deterrence" view of the Anglo-American conservative political school: the overall peace of human society is based on the balance of power, not the goodwill of human beings. Because of the fear of all-out nuclear war, the leaders of major powers have become more cautious in their behavior, have to respect international law and international treaties, strictly restrain their own behavior, especially to effectively control the impulse of their respective soldiers to use force, and no one dares to easily launch a war, thus creating an overall peace that lasted for more than forty years after World War II.

Philosophically, this may be the subject of speculation on the mutual exchange of yin and yang, mutual mutual survival, and the transformation of good and evil. For politicians, it is a very realistic political choice. That is, "nuclear deterrence" based on the "balance of nuclear terror" has ensured a long-term overall peace between the major powers of human society.

The course of history further confirms Margaret Thatcher's view. To date, major countries have enjoyed some 76 years of general peace since World War II.

(The author is a historian and military scholar)

(This article is only the author's personal opinion and does not represent the position of this newspaper)

Mei Yijun