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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

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

Air Mean Military
The most dangerous error is failure to recognize our own tendency to error.
B. H. LIDDELL HART

Dangerous Errors Tendencies
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
The nearer the cutting off point lies to the main force of the enemy, the more immediate the effect; whereas the closer to the strategic base it takes place, the greater the effect.
B. H. LIDDELL HART

Cutting Lying Military
Direct pressure always tends to harden and consolidate the resistance of an opponent.
B. H. LIDDELL HART

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

Bars Pursuit Satisfaction
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
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
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

Country Military Numbers
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

Level Military War
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.
B. H. LIDDELL HART

Fighting Hazards Military
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
The predominance of moral factors in all military decisions. On them constantly turns the issue of war and battle. In the history of war they form the more constant factors, changing only in degree, whereas the physical factors are different in almost every war and every military situation.
B. H. LIDDELL HART

Issues Military War
Every action is seen to fall into one of three main categories, guarding, hitting, or moving. Here, then, are the elements of combat, whether in war or pugilism.
B. H. LIDDELL HART

Fall Moving War
The search for the truth for truth’s sake is the mark of the historian.
B. H. LIDDELL HART

Historian Mark Sake

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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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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