Why World War 2 was a total war?

Answer 1

When you are at war, you have to decide how badly you want to win, and how soon you want to win. When you really want to win, you fight a total war. this means that you shoot to kill, take few prisoners if any at all, and don't worry about collateral damage. this included killing civilians in some cases (fire bombs, Nuclear Weapons).

In a total war, the rules set forth by the Geneva Convention are often broken (killing prisoners/civilians). these usually dont matter unless the war was not worth the damage. World War 2 was deemed important enough that every sacrifice would be for a good cause, (Ending the terrible war). the victors are usually seen as heroes who ended the war and the losers are seen as the terrible people who killed civilians.

These things cause wars to go by much faster than they usually would. Take modern day Afghanistan or Iraq. The United States does not fight a total war over there because the objective is to kill terrorists, not be terrorists. while this makes sense, it has caused both wars to go on longer than they needed.

Basically, The allies fought to win, with no regard to how many casualties we took. this caused the downfall of the Axis within 5 years.