: a war whose objective is less than the total defeat of the enemy
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In contrast, China has made targeted investments intended to give it an advantage in a quick, limited war, while keeping its overall defense spending relatively modest: Beijing’s defense spending has risen from five percent of U.S. levels in 1995 to 32 percent in 2017.—Oriana Skylar Mastro, Foreign Affairs, 20 May 2025 And as always, there’s no guarantee that a limited war would stay limited.—Joshua Keating, Vox, 7 Dec. 2018 Israel and Hezbollah have engaged in a limited war since last October, but Israeli forces have significantly escalated the scope of their attacks since the beginning of September in an attempt to force Hezbollah to stop its attacks on northern Israel.—Mike Brest, Washington Examiner - Political News and Conservative Analysis About Congress, the President, and the Federal Government, 30 Sep. 2024 Israel and Hezbollah have engaged in a limited war since last October, but Israeli forces have significantly escalated the scope of their attacks since the beginning of September in an attempt to force Hezbollah to stop its attacks on northern Israel.—Mike Brest, Washington Examiner - Political News and Conservative Analysis About Congress, the President, and the Federal Government, 30 Sep. 2024 In this scenario, which may already be coming to fruition, the meager hope is that the conflict transforms into simply a more limited war.—Daniel Byman, Foreign Affairs, 5 Apr. 2024 Western policymakers in Washington also believe that Iran is relatively satisfied with the more limited war’s outcome so far: The Hamas attacks seriously undermined diplomacy meant to normalize relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia.—Matt Bradley, NBC News, 14 Dec. 2023 But the fight to capture it risks putting Israel on a collision course with the Biden administration, which has called on Israel to minimize civilian casualties and ease humanitarian deprivation in Gaza, and to hew to a more limited war aim of expelling Hamas from power.—Gordon Lubold, WSJ, 7 Dec. 2023 Many scholars panned the book, believing its 34-year-old author had overestimated the nation’s ability to keep limited war limited.—David E. Sanger, New York Times, 30 Nov. 2023
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