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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

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B. H. Liddell Hart
Age: 74 †
Born: 1895
Born: October 31
Died: 1970
Died: January 29
Historian
Journalist
Military Historian
Writer
Paris
France
Sir Basil Henry Liddell Hart
Basil Henry Liddell Hart
Power
Western
Increased
Answer
Insurance
Military
Peoples
Security
Insecurity
Sharpened
Answers
Bombs
Deepened
Full
Final
Hydrogen
Sense
Finals
Striking
Dream
Anxiety
Bomb

More quotes by B. H. Liddell Hart

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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
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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
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It is folly to imagine that the aggressive types, whether individuals or nations, can be bought off ... since the payment of danegeld stimulates a demand for more danegeld. But they can be curbed. Their very belief in force makes them more susceptible to the deterrent effect of a formidable opposing force.
B. H. Liddell Hart
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With growing experience, all skillful commanders sought to profit by the power of the defensive, even when on the offensive.
B. H. Liddell Hart
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The theory of the indirect approach operates on the line of least expectation.
B. H. Liddell Hart
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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
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Loss of hope rather than loss of life is what decides the issues of war. But helplessness induces hopelessness.
B. H. Liddell Hart
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The most consistently successful commanders, when faced by an enemy in a position that was strong naturally or materially, have hardly ever tackled it in a direct way. And when, under pressure of circumstances, they have risked a direct attack, the result has commonly been to blot their record with a failure.
B. H. Liddell Hart
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If you wish for peace, understand war.
B. H. Liddell Hart
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The most dangerous error is failure to recognize our own tendency to error.
B. H. Liddell Hart
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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
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Direct pressure always tends to harden and consolidate the resistance of an opponent.
B. H. Liddell Hart
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The unexpected cannot guarantee success, but it guarantees the best chance of success.
B. H. Liddell Hart
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Avoid self-righteousness like the devil- nothing is so self-blinding.
B. H. Liddell Hart
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It is only to clear from history that states rarely keep faith with each other, save in so far (and so long) as their promises seem to them to combine with their interests.
B. H. Liddell Hart
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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
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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
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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
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Guerrilla war is a kind of war waged by the few but dependent on the support of many.
B. H. Liddell Hart
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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