Total war
Strategically, the equal balance of destructive power possessed by each side manifests in the doctrine of mutually assured destruction (MAD), which determines that a nuclear attack by one superpower would result in a nuclear counter-strike by the other. This would result in hundreds of millions of deaths in a world where, in words widely attributed to Nikita Khrushchev, "The living will envy the dead".

During the Cold War, the two superpowers sought to avoid open conflict between their respective forces, as both sides recognised that such a clash could very easily escalate, and quickly involve nuclear weapons. Instead, the superpowers fought each other through their involvement in proxy wars, military buildups, and diplomatic standoffs.
In the case of proxy wars, each superpower supported its respective allies in conflicts with forces aligned with the other superpower, such as in the Vietnam War and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.
The following post-World War II conflicts have been characterized as "total war":

1948 Arab–Israeli War (1948–1949)
Iran–Iraq War (1980–1988)
Russian invasion of Ukraine (2022–present)

See also: The bomber will always get through
Conventional warfare
Economic warfare
Roerich Pact
War economy
War of annihilation

References: 

Bibliography: 

External links: Israel's 1948 War of Independence as a Total War
A collection of papers relating to the Sullivan Expedition
Daniel Marc Segesser: Controversy: Total War, in: 1914–1918-online. International Encyclopedia of the First World War.