• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

1. black
2. grey
3. blue
4. red
5. brown
6. white

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.

B. H. Liddell Hart

Related Topics

MilitaryWar

Popular Authors

Marilyn Monroe Paulo Coelho Abraham Lincoln C. S. Lewis Khalil Gibran Charlie Chaplin Gautama Buddha Isaac Newton

Prevoius| Next

More B. H. Liddell Hart Quotes

• 

  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
  CountryMilitaryNumbers
• 

  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
  NextShouldStepsThinking
• 

  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.

  B. H. LIDDELL HART
  BalanceMilitaryUsual
• 

  It is folly to imagine that the aggressive types, whether individuals or nations, can be bought off … since the payment of danegeld stimulates a demand for more danegeld. But they can be curbed. Their very belief in force makes them more susceptible to the deterrent effect of a formidable opposing force.

  B. H. LIDDELL HART
  BeliefDemandMilitary
• 

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

  B. H. LIDDELL HART
  MilitaryOpponentsResistance
• 

  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.

  B. H. LIDDELL HART
  EnemyMilitaryPurpose
• 

  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
  EffortMilitaryMoving
• 

  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
  AirSoldierWar
• 

  While there are many causes for which a state goes to war, its fundamental object can be epitomized as that of ensuring the continuance of its policy – in face of the determination of the opposing state to pursue a contrary policy. In the human will lies the source and mainspring of conflict.

  B. H. LIDDELL HART
  DeterminationMilitaryWar
• 

  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 HART
  AirMeanMilitary
• 

  As has happened so often in history, victory had bred a complacency and fostered an orthodoxy which led to defeat in the next war.

  B. H. LIDDELL HART
  MilitaryVictoryWar
• 

  Guerrilla war is a kind of war waged by the few but dependent on the support of many.

  B. H. LIDDELL HART
  KindSupportWar
• 

  The theory of the indirect approach operates on the line of least expectation.

  B. H. LIDDELL HART
  ExpectationIndirectLine
• 

  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
  HistoryPowerWar
• 

  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 ApproachHopefulMilitary
• 

  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.

  B. H. LIDDELL HART
  LevelMilitaryWar