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 HARTWith growing experience, all skillful commanders sought to profit by the power of the defensive, even when on the offensive.
More B. H. Liddell Hart Quotes
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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.
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The only thing harder than getting a new idea into the military mind is to get an old one out.
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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.
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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.
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The easiest and quickest path into the esteem of traditional military authorities is by the appeal to the eye, rather than to the mind. ‘The polish and pipeclay’ school is not yet extinct, and it is easier for the mediocre intelligence to become an authority on buttons, than on tactics.
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The urge to gain release from tension by action is a precipitating cause of war.
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The more closely [the German army] converged on [Stalingrad], the narrower became their scope for tactical manoeuvre as a lever in loosening resistance. By contrast, the narrowing of the frontage made it easier for the defender to switch his local reserves to any threatened point on the defensive arc.
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Inflict the least possible permanent injury, for the enemy of to-day is the customer of the morrow and the ally of the future
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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.
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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.
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The theory of the indirect approach operates on the line of least expectation.
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The unexpected cannot guarantee success, but it guarantees the best chance of success.
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While hitting one must guard … In order to hit with effect, the enemy must be taken off his guard.
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The search for the truth for truth’s sake is the mark of the historian.
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War is always a matter of doing evil in the hope that good may come of it.
B. H. LIDDELL HART