B. H. Liddell Hart
B. H. Liddell Hart
Sir Basil Henry Liddell Hart, commonly known throughout most of his career as Captain B. H. Liddell Hart, was an English soldier, military historian and military theorist. Following World War II, he was a proponent of the West German rearmament and the moral rehabilitation of the German Wehrmacht. As part of these two interconnected initiatives, Liddell Hart significantly contributed to the creation of the Rommel myth...
NationalityBritish
ProfessionHistorian
Date of Birth31 October 1895
military taken order
While hitting one must guard ... In order to hit with effect, the enemy must be taken off his guard.
military growing offensive
With growing experience, all skillful commanders sought to profit by the power of the defensive, even when on the offensive.
military army levers
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.
military war levels
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.
military hammers mosquitoes
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.
war military should-have
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.
military opponents resistance
Direct pressure always tends to harden and consolidate the resistance of an opponent.
war military victory
As has happened so often in history, victory had bred a complacency and fostered an orthodoxy which led to defeat in the next war.
military fighting thinking
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.
strong military war
It should be the aim of grand strategy to discover and pierce the Achilles' heel of the opposing government's power to make war. Strategy, in turn, should seek to penetrate a joint in the harness of the opposing forces. To apply one's strength where the opponent is strong weakens oneself disproportionately to the effect attained. To strike with strong effect, one must strike at weakness.
determination war lying
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.
military war mean
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.
country military numbers
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.
military army aids
An army should always be so distributed that its parts can aid each other and combine to produce the maximum possible concentration of force at one place, while the minimum force necessary is used elsewhere to prepare the success of the concentration.