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

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.

[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.

Natural hazards, however formidable, are inherently less dangerous and less uncertain than fighting hazards. All conditions are more calculable, all obstacles more surmountable than those of human resistance.

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.

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

The only thing harder than getting a new idea into the military mind is to get an old one out.

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.

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.

While hitting one must guard … In order to hit with effect, the enemy must be taken off his guard.

For the spread and endurance of an idea the originator is dependent on the self-development of the receivers and transmitters.

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.

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.

Inflict the least possible permanent injury, for the enemy of to-day is the customer of the morrow and the ally of the future

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.

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.

If you want peace, understand war.

One thing that fiction does is it allows us to take big picture questions, big issues, big moral and socio-political changes and see how they play out on real people’s lives, with real individuals.

We don’t discuss this issue [conversations with Russia] as a government, but we discuss the repercussions, which is more important because sometimes repercussions could be more destroying than the strike itself.

We thought a magazine, even a self proclaimed literary review, had to be involved in politics. We felt sex was healthy and made (then) bold use of fiction and graphics so declaring. We operated on a shoestring and still got our issues out on time. In short, we had a ball.

The more important reason is that the research itself provides an important long-run perspective on the issues that we face on a day-to-day basis.

The churches used to win their arguments against atheism, agnosticism, and other burning issues by burning the ismist, which is fine proof that there is a devil but hardly evidence that there is a God.

We do know that a percentage of LGBT people avoid and delay screening and care because of fear about or experience of stigma, discrimination or simply lack of knowledge about LGBT people and their health amongst providers.

I think we’re in a global crisis of unprecedented scale, with global warming and climate change, and we don’t have the solution using any of the separated structures that are attempting to solve these issues, whether it be the United Nations, or the global corporations.

The issue is not that morals be applied to public policy, it’s that conservatives bring public policy to spheres of our lives where it should not enter.