Air forces offered the possibility of striking a the enemy’s economic and moral centres without having first to achieve ‘the destruction of the enemy’s main forces on the battlefield’. Air-power might attain a direct end by indirect means – hopping over opposition instead of overthrowing it.
B. H. LIDDELL HARTIn 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.
More B. H. Liddell Hart Quotes
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[The] aim is not so much to seek battle as to seek a strategic situation so advantageous that if it does not of itself produce the decision, its continuation by a battle is sure to achieve this. In other words, dislocation is the aim of strategy.
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The military weapon is but one of the means that serve the purposes of war: one out of the assortment which grand strategy can employ.
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The profoundest truth of war is that the issue of battle is usually decided in the minds of the opposing commanders, not in the bodies of their men.
B. H. LIDDELL HART -
It is only to clear from history that states rarely keep faith with each other, save in so far (and so long) as their promises seem to them to combine with their interests.
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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.
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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.
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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.
B. H. LIDDELL HART -
An army should always be so distributed that its parts can aid each other and combine to produce the maximum possible concentration of force at one place, while the minimum force necessary is used elsewhere to prepare the success of the concentration.
B. H. LIDDELL HART -
The most effective indirect approach is one that lures or startles the opponent into a false move – so that, as in ju-jitsu, his own effort is turned into the lever of his overthrow.
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Guerrilla war is a kind of war waged by the few but dependent on the support of many.
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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.
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For whoever habitually suppresses the truth in the interests of tact will produce a deformity from the womb of his thought.
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Loss of hope rather than loss of life is what decides the issues of war. But helplessness induces hopelessness.
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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.
B. H. LIDDELL HART -
A complacent satisfaction with present knowledge is the chief bar to the pursuit of knowledge.
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Direct pressure always tends to harden and consolidate the resistance of an opponent.
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Ensure that both plan and dispositions are flexible, adaptable to circumstances. Your plan should foresee and provide for a next step in case of success or failure.
B. H. LIDDELL HART -
The most dangerous error is failure to recognize our own tendency to error.
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Air Power is, above all, a psychological weapon – and only short-sighted soldiers, too battle-minded, underrate the importance of psychological factors in war.
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The urge to gain release from tension by action is a precipitating cause of war.
B. H. LIDDELL HART -
The only thing harder than getting a new idea into the military mind is to get an old one out.
B. H. LIDDELL HART -
The implied threat of using nuclear weapons to curb guerrillas was as absurd as to talk of using a sledge hammer to ward off a swarm of mosquitoes.
B. H. LIDDELL HART -
If you find your opponent in a strong position costly to force, you should leave him a line of retreat as the quickest way of loosening his resistance. It should, equally, be a principle of policy, especially in war, to provide your opponent with a ladder by which he can climb down.
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In reality, it si more fruitful to wound than to kill. While the dead man lies still, counting only one man less, the wounded man is a progressive drain upon his side.
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If you want peace, understand war.
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To foster the people’s willing spirit is often as important as to possess the more concrete forms of power.
B. H. LIDDELL HART