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Loss of hope rather than loss of life is what decides the issues of war. But helplessness induces hopelessness.

B. H. Liddell Hart

In a campaign against more than one state or army, it is more fruitful to concentrate first against the weaker partner than to attempt the overthrow of the stronger in the belief that the latter’s defeat will automatically involve the collapse of the others.
B. H. LIDDELL HART

Army Military Stronger
A modern state is such a complex and interdependent fabric that it offers a target highly sensitive to a sudden and overwhelming blow from the air.
B. H. LIDDELL HART

Air Blow Target
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

Determination Military 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
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

Fighting Military Thinking
A complacent satisfaction with present knowledge is the chief bar to the pursuit of knowledge.
B. H. LIDDELL HART

Bars Pursuit Satisfaction
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

Enemy Military Purpose
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

Belief Demand Military
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 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

Power Truth War
In war, the chief incalculable is the human will.
B. H. LIDDELL HART

Marine Corps Military War
Inflict the least possible permanent injury, for the enemy of to-day is the customer of the morrow and the ally of the future
B. H. LIDDELL HART

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

Evil Military War
In should be the duty of every soldier to reflect on the experiences of the past, in the endeavor to discover improvements, in his particular sphere of action, which are practicable in the immediate future.
B. H. LIDDELL HART

Past Soldier Spheres
The downfall of civilized states tends to come not from the direct assaults of foes, but from internal decay combined with the consequences of exhaustion in war.
B. H. LIDDELL HART

Decay Military War

Loss of hope rather than loss of life is what decides the issues of war. But helplessness induces hopelessness.

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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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