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

B. H. Liddell Hart

To foster the people’s willing spirit is often as important as to possess the more concrete forms of power.
B. H. LIDDELL HART

Important Military People
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
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

Military War
[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.
B. H. LIDDELL HART

Battle Decision Military
For even the best of peace training is more theoretical than practical experience … indirect practical experience may be the more valuable because infinitely wider.
B. H. LIDDELL HART

May Military Training
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.
B. H. LIDDELL HART

Lying Men Reality
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
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
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
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
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
A complacent satisfaction with present knowledge is the chief bar to the pursuit of knowledge.
B. H. LIDDELL HART

Bars Pursuit Satisfaction
No man can exactly calculate the capacity of human genius and stupidity, nor the incapacity of will.
B. H. LIDDELL HART

Men Military Stupidity
While hitting one must guard … In order to hit with effect, the enemy must be taken off his guard.
B. H. LIDDELL HART

Military Order Taken
If you find your opponent in a strong position costly to force, you should leave him a line of retreat as the quickest way of loosening his resistance. It should, equally, be a principle of policy, especially in war, to provide your opponent with a ladder by which he can climb down.
B. H. LIDDELL HART

Military Strong War
Avoid self-righteousness like the devil- nothing is so self-blinding.
B. H. LIDDELL HART

Devil Self Society

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

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

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