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Preface There were some continuities, but more important discontinuities, in military lessons drawn from World War I about operational as against merely tactical mobility New offensive doctrines were introduced by all sides that strove to overcome profound defensive advantages and quicken the pace of battle Not all were successful, as realities of industrial attrition meant that by 1945 the killing rate in battle exceeded that of the Great War At the same time, old ideas about sea power and armies on the move had to be adjusted to incorporate new ideas and realities of air power Everywhere, there was newfound devotion of government and science to weapons development That process meant the means of destruction available were vastly greater by 1945 than when the war began, more than a single technological generation ahead of what planners anticipated just a few years before it started Armies and navies were subjected to protracted attritional combat for which few had planned and none were really prepared, even as military leaders searched for alternate strategies that might provide a quicker route to “decisive victory.” Everyone learned better utilization of combined arms and radio-linked command and control systems so that more powerful killing machines became more efficient as well as more numerous in late-war battles Accompanying rising military capabilities was a deterioration in moral and operational restraint, until World War II became a true total war World War II was more truly global in its causes and theaters of extraordinary violence, and perhaps in lasting demographic and geopolitical consequences, than the preceding world war It had a pronounced and ultimate character as a war not just among opposing national militaries, but as a “race” war: a conflict so deep in the ambition of hatred that some parties sought not just permanent political and economic domination, but biological extermination of their enemies Perhaps the most important difference between the world wars was that World War II was fought not mainly to adjust national borders or gain imperial provinces or colonies Right from the start, it was waged by Nazi Germany as a Vernichtungskrieg (“war of annihilation”), a war of “race and blood” beyond the normal clash of nations, wherein whole peoples and civilizations were marked off to disappear from the face of the Earth Some very nearly did On the German side, World War II was a total war in ends sought from the first day to the last Dedication to total victory by any means did not mark, at least at first, the goals pursued or methods employed by most other participants Neither the French nor British began the fight dedicated to total destruction of the German enemy Far from it; the RAF spent much of the first winter of the war dropping leaflets instead of bombs on the Ruhr That changed starting in mid-1940, as progressive decisions were made to smash Germany’s war production from the air, then to destroy its cities and morale by targeting its people for bombing Despite the horrors of Shanghai and Nanjing, the Japanese war of aggression underway in China was essentially a traditional war of conquest of territory and for regional geopolitical and economic dominance Once fighting in Asia and the Pacific merged with war in Europe from the end of 1941, however, those theaters also took on the general character and methods xlvii
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