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It is thus more potent, as well as more economical, to disarm the enemy than to attempt his destruction by hard fighting … A strategist should think in terms of paralysing, not of killing.

B. H. Liddell Hart

If you want peace, understand war.
B. H. LIDDELL HART

Peace Want War
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.
B. H. LIDDELL HART

Gauges Military Mind
The more closely [the German army] converged on [Stalingrad], the narrower became their scope for tactical manoeuvre as a lever in loosening resistance. By contrast, the narrowing of the frontage made it easier for the defender to switch his local reserves to any threatened point on the defensive arc.
B. H. LIDDELL HART

Army Levers Military
War is always a matter of doing evil in the hope that good may come of it.
B. H. LIDDELL HART

Evil Military War
The practical value of history is to throw the film of the past through the material projector of the present on to the screen of the future.
B. H. LIDDELL HART

Film Materials Past
Guerrilla war is a kind of war waged by the few but dependent on the support of many.
B. H. LIDDELL HART

Kind Support War
No man can exactly calculate the capacity of human genius and stupidity, nor the incapacity of will.
B. H. LIDDELL HART

Men Military Stupidity
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

Next Should Steps Thinking
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.
B. H. LIDDELL HART

History Power War
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.
B. H. LIDDELL HART

Effort Military Moving
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.
B. H. LIDDELL HART

Mean Military War
This high proportion of history’s decisive campaigns, the significance of which is enhanced by the comparative rarity of the direct approach, enforces the conclusion that the indirect is by far the most hopeful and economic form of strategy.
B. H. LIDDELL HART

Direct Approach Hopeful Military
Air Power is, above all, a psychological weapon – and only short-sighted soldiers, too battle-minded, underrate the importance of psychological factors in war.
B. H. LIDDELL HART

Air Soldier War
A complacent satisfaction with present knowledge is the chief bar to the pursuit of knowledge.
B. H. LIDDELL HART

Bars Pursuit Satisfaction
For the spread and endurance of an idea the originator is dependent on the self-development of the receivers and transmitters.
B. H. LIDDELL HART

Endurance Ideas Self
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

Dream Hydrogen Bomb Military

It is thus more potent, as well as more economical, to disarm the enemy than to attempt his destruction by hard fighting … A strategist should think in terms of paralysing, not of killing.

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It is thus more potent, as well as more economical, to disarm the enemy than to attempt his destruction by hard fighting … A strategist should think in terms of paralysing, not of killing.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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