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

• This high proportion of history's decisive campaigns, the significance of which is enhanced by the comparative rarity of the direct approach, enforces the conclusion that the indirect is by far the most hopeful and economic form of strategy.

  B. H. Liddell Hart

  Military, Hopeful, Direct Approach

• 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

• To foster the people's willing spirit is often as important as to possess the more concrete forms of power.

  B. H. Liddell Hart

  Military, People, Important

• In any problem where an opposing force exists and cannot be regulated, one must foresee and provide for alternative courses. Adaptability is the law which governs survival in war as in life ... To be practical, any plan must take account of the enemy's power to frustrate it; the best chance of overcoming such obstruction is to have a plan that can be easily varied to fit the circumstances met.

  B. H. Liddell Hart

  Military, War, Law

• War is always a matter of doing evil in the hope that good may come of it.

  B. H. Liddell Hart

  Military, War, Evil

• 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

  Military, Fighting, Hazards

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

  B. H. Liddell Hart

  Military, Opponents, Resistance

• No man can exactly calculate the capacity of human genius and stupidity, nor the incapacity of will.

  B. H. Liddell Hart

  Military, Men, Stupidity

• The unexpected cannot guarantee success, but it guarantees the best chance of success.

  B. H. Liddell Hart

  Military, Guarantees, Chance

• 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

  Military, Lying, Cutting

• 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

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