“To ensure attaining an objective, one should have alternate objectives. An attack that converges on one point should threaten, and be able to diverge against another. Only by this flexibility of aim can strategy be attuned to the uncertainty of war.”

The hydrogen bomb is not the answer to the Western peoples’ dream of full and final insurance of their security … While it has increased their striking power it has sharpened their anxiety and deepened their sense of insecurity.

With growing experience, all skillful commanders sought to profit by the power of the defensive, even when on the offensive.

In strategy the longest way round is often the shortest way there- a direct approach to the object exhausts the attacker and hardens the resistance by compression, whereas an indirect approach loosens the defender’s hold by upsetting his balance.

The easiest and quickest path into the esteem of traditional military authorities is by the appeal to the eye, rather than to the mind. ‘The polish and pipeclay’ school is not yet extinct, and it is easier for the mediocre intelligence to become an authority on buttons, than on tactics.

For even the best of peace training is more theoretical than practical experience … indirect practical experience may be the more valuable because infinitely wider.

While the nominal strength of a country is represented by its numbers and resources, this muscular development is dependent on the state of its internal organs and nerve-system – upon its stability of control, morale, and supply.

If you wish for peace, understand war.

Direct pressure always tends to harden and consolidate the resistance of an opponent.

The effect to be sought is the dislocation of the opponent’s mind and dispositions – such an effect is the true gauge of an indirect approach.

The more usual reason for adopting a strategy of limited aim is that of awaiting a change in the balance of force … The essential condition of such a strategy is that the drain on him should be disproportionately greater than on oneself.

No man can exactly calculate the capacity of human genius and stupidity, nor the incapacity of will.

A complacent satisfaction with present knowledge is the chief bar to the pursuit of knowledge.

The higher level of grand strategy [is] that of conducting war with a far-sighted regard to the state of the peace that will follow.

To foster the people’s willing spirit is often as important as to possess the more concrete forms of power.

In the case of a state that is seeking not conquest but the maintenance of its security, the aim is fulfilled if the threat is removed – if the enemy is led to abandon his purpose.

The unexpected cannot guarantee success, but it guarantees the best chance of success.

The United States is afraid of China; it is not a military threat to anyone and is the least aggressive of all the major military powers.

Rich people don’t like to be in the military. The shoes are ugly and the uniforms itch. Rich people don’t go in much for revolution or terrorism, either.

U.S. military action in Iraq: It sure didn’t work out well last time.

Medical researchers and military analysts forebode grim consequences.

That big oil is running our energy policy and the military industrial complex is determining our foreign policy.

Not very good with death? Father was a military man, and military men lived with death; lived for death; lived on death. To a professional soldier, oddly enough, death was life.

An accidental military launch of multiple warheads could result in a worldwide nuclear holocaust.

As the Russian military deteriorates, and as rogue governments and terrorists seek to acquire nuclear capabilities, the threat continues to grow.