You do realize that wars start because of diplomatic plays, right?
We have no idea what the scope of this war actually is, so your assumption that it's a "total war" is completely unfounded. The stakes of a war are determined by what wen on during the diplomatic play, and since we know nothing about the diplomatic play,
So you are specifically cherry picking a case without knowing the full necessary context to understand what's happening, and then when presented with that context, you're dismissing it out of hand because it doesn't support your narrative.
But let's take a look at another case where we do know more of that context, from the peace deal dev diary.
"This rebellion against Britain has turned into something of a brush war between the European Great Powers, with limited fighting in the colonies between Britain and its enemy France. War Support remains high, but if things take a bloodier turn both sides may find their populations quickly growing weary of the fighting."
Here is what most wars where great powers are backing colonial rebellions or small colonial states will probably look like. We have France and Austria backing Kanak against Great Britain, similar to Germany backing Tibesti against France. Now, in most cases like this, the other great powers, Germany in the Tibesti case and France and Austria in the Kanak case, will be non-negotiating participants. Which means, guess what, invading mainland Germany as France or invading France or Austria as Britain will not help the attacker in the war at all because Germany has no sway in the peace deal, so there is no reason to push on those fronts or involve troops beyond a defending action. Nor will capitulating as Germany, or as France or Austria in the Tibesti case, actually matter except for damaging its relations with a minor colony, so there's no reason for the side backing the colony to commit fully to war either. They're not a stakeholder in the peace, so there's no reason to commit to a full total war as you claim.
In fact, the developers specifically state that this isn't a "total war" or an "all out war" between the great powers involved. Instead, it would be "something of a brush war" where the main focus of the great power siding with "limited fighting in the colonies". So even if diplomatic plays like this between great powers escalate to war, which they are absolutely not guaranteed to do and is going to be unlikely, they are rarely going to be total wars between great powers. Because, and again I can't stress this enough since you seem so desperate to ignore the basic design philosophy of the game, that's the entire point of the diplomatic play system as it connects to warfare, to move away from every argument between great powers turning into total existential wars like they did in previous games and limit both how often diplomatic conflict escalates to military conflict and when it does, limit the scope of said wars unless there's actively a reason, in the form of a wargoal at stake, for its scope to be wider.
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