B. H. Liddell Hart Military Quotes

Quotes about: Military

• In war, the chief incalculable is the human will.

  B. H. Liddell Hart

  Military, War, Marine Corps

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

  B. H. Liddell Hart

  Military, Ideas, Mind

  "What's Up With All These Planes Landing At The Wrong Airport?" by Robert Bateman, www.esquire.com. February 10, 2014.

• The implied threat of using nuclear weapons to curb guerrillas was as absurd as to talk of using a sledge hammer to ward off a swarm of mosquitoes.

  B. H. Liddell Hart

  Military, Hammers, Mosquitoes

• For whoever habitually suppresses the truth in the interests of tact will produce a deformity from the womb of his thought.

  B. H. Liddell Hart

  Military, Deformity, Produce

  B.H. Liddell Hart (2015). “Why Don't We Learn from History?”, p.62, Lulu Press, Inc

• 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

  Military, Moving, Effort

• 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

  Military, War, Decay

• 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

  Military, Enemy, Purpose

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

  B. H. Liddell Hart

  Military, War, Victory

• 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.

  B. H. Liddell Hart

  Military, Eye, School

• 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, Military, Hydrogen Bomb

• 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

  Military, Mind, Gauges

• 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, Should Have

• In war the chief incalculable is the human will, which manifests itself in resistance, which in turn lies in the province of tactics. Strategy has not to overcome resistance, except from nature. Its purpose is to diminish the possibility of resistance, and it seeks to fulfil this purpose by exploiting the elements of movement and surprise.

  B. H. Liddell Hart

  Military, War, Lying

• 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

  Military, Mean, Air

• 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

  Military, Army, Stronger

• 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

  Military, War, Levels

• 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

  Military, Enemy, Allies

• 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

  Military, War, Mean

• 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.

  B. H. Liddell Hart

  Military, Army, Levers

• [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

  Military, Decision, Battle

• 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

  Strong, Military, War

• 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

  Military, Training, May

• 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

• With growing experience, all skillful commanders sought to profit by the power of the defensive, even when on the offensive.

  B. H. Liddell Hart

  Military, Growing, Offensive

• For if we merely take what obviously appears the line of least resistance, its obviousness will appeal to the opponent also; and this line may no longer be that of least resistance. In studying the physical aspect, we must never lose sight of the psychological, and only when both are combined is the strategy truly an indirect approach, calculated to dislocate the opponent's balance.

  B. H. Liddell Hart

  Military, Sight, Balance

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