they're not really that different, at the highest intensity they join each other and they are both employed discontinuously in the battlefield. Not that it matters as modern warfare has shown that offensive warfare against any enemy who have popular support, provided there is not a ridiculously overwhelming force differential (we're talking over 20:1), the territory is not a speck (allowing for defense in depth) and there isn't several generation more advanced weaponry (irrelevant but for the smallest non state actors), is basically unwinnable. There is no scenario where the US wins against China while several where China can take and hold Taiwan (as it fits in both the overwhelming force differential and very small territory).
Examples of the exceptions included, in chronological order of mention, are : Iraq, South America guerilla movements or South East Asian ones, both Afrin and Nagarno Karabakh, and Sri Lanka's Tamils;
The thing is i think they tried total war, at least for a couple of years, it just isn't how things work anymore with modern warfare, i mean partisans were already present during ww2, if you mean total mobilization the stoppage of treats and non essential goods will crash the market hard enough to dry the US coffers before any battle, so I don't think the US is physically capable of even fighting total war at the moment. Of course a proper fascist would just suspend the markets and roll the dice so it is not entirely impossible either. Anyways, as I said offensive warfare is basically unwinnable, Turkey, Ukraine, Saudi Arabia have all tried unsucessfully with significant enough means that I don't think they would be qualitatively different from conflict with an official state actor, i think the premium we have given to infantry numbers are extremely severely reduced with new techniques, technologies and indigenous advanced fabrication (you can't say the amount of troops deployed in Yemen for instance 100000-200000 for each side would be significantly different from total war)
I mean fighting an insurgency vs a total war are not the same thing. They are very different.
they're not really that different, at the highest intensity they join each other and they are both employed discontinuously in the battlefield. Not that it matters as modern warfare has shown that offensive warfare against any enemy who have popular support, provided there is not a ridiculously overwhelming force differential (we're talking over 20:1), the territory is not a speck (allowing for defense in depth) and there isn't several generation more advanced weaponry (irrelevant but for the smallest non state actors), is basically unwinnable. There is no scenario where the US wins against China while several where China can take and hold Taiwan (as it fits in both the overwhelming force differential and very small territory). Examples of the exceptions included, in chronological order of mention, are : Iraq, South America guerilla movements or South East Asian ones, both Afrin and Nagarno Karabakh, and Sri Lanka's Tamils;
I'm not saying america would win, just that I don't think you can extrapolate america's performance in a total war from something like afghanistan.
The thing is i think they tried total war, at least for a couple of years, it just isn't how things work anymore with modern warfare, i mean partisans were already present during ww2, if you mean total mobilization the stoppage of treats and non essential goods will crash the market hard enough to dry the US coffers before any battle, so I don't think the US is physically capable of even fighting total war at the moment. Of course a proper fascist would just suspend the markets and roll the dice so it is not entirely impossible either. Anyways, as I said offensive warfare is basically unwinnable, Turkey, Ukraine, Saudi Arabia have all tried unsucessfully with significant enough means that I don't think they would be qualitatively different from conflict with an official state actor, i think the premium we have given to infantry numbers are extremely severely reduced with new techniques, technologies and indigenous advanced fabrication (you can't say the amount of troops deployed in Yemen for instance 100000-200000 for each side would be significantly different from total war)