3. Is total war acceptable?

“Response to aggression must not exceed the nature of the aggression. To destroy civilization as we know it by waging a ‘total war’ as today it could be waged would be a monstrously disproportionate response to aggression on the part of any nation. Moreover, the lives of innocent persons may never be taken directly, regardless of the purpose alleged for doing so. To wage truly ‘total’ war is by definition to take huge numbers of innocent lives. Just response to aggression must be discriminate; it must be directed against unjust aggressors, not against innocent people caught up in a war not of their making.” U.S. Bishops, The Challenge of Peace (1983) 103-04.

Reflections on total war.
a) Total war is one in which everything and everyone in the enemy country becomes a potential target, and the goal of the war is to destroy everything and everyone in its path. Why is this kind of war a “disproportionate response to aggression”?
b) What does it mean to say that a just response to aggression must be discriminate?
c) Is total war the only kind that can be waged today, or is there an alternative that avoids the moral pitfalls of total war?