<Tr> <Td> <Ul> <Li> </Li> <Li> </Li> <Li> </Li> </Ul> </Td> </Tr> <Ul> <Li> </Li> <Li> </Li> <Li> </Li> </Ul> <P> Total war is warfare that includes any and all civilian - associated resources and infrastructure as legitimate military targets, mobilizes all of the resources of society to fight the war, and gives priority to warfare over non-combatant needs . The American - English Dictionary defines total war as "war that is 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 ." </P> <P> In the mid-19th century, scholars identified "total war" as a separate class of warfare . In a total war, to an extent inapplicable in less total conflicts, the differentiation between combatants and non-combatants diminishes and sometimes it even vanishes entirely because opposing sides can consider nearly every human resource, even that of non-combatants, to be a part of the war effort . </P>

What was meant by the term total war