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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
Security
Insecurity
Sharpened
Answers
Bombs
Deepened
Full
Final
Hydrogen
Sense
Finals
Striking
Dream
Anxiety
Bomb
Power
Western
Increased
Answer
Insurance
Military
Peoples

More quotes by B. H. Liddell Hart

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Air Power is, above all, a psychological weapon - and only short-sighted soldiers, too battle-minded, underrate the importance of psychological factors in war.
B. H. Liddell Hart
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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 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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No man can exactly calculate the capacity of human genius and stupidity, nor the incapacity of will.
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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Direct pressure always tends to harden and consolidate the resistance of an opponent.
B. H. Liddell Hart
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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.
B. H. Liddell Hart
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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
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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 urge to gain release from tension by action is a precipitating cause of war.
B. H. Liddell Hart
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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
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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
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In reality, it si more fruitful to wound than to kill. While the dead man lies still, counting only one man less, the wounded man is a progressive drain upon his side.
B. H. Liddell Hart
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Ensure that both plan and dispositions are flexible, adaptable to circumstances. Your plan should foresee and provide for a next step in case of success or failure.
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 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.
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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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
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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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While hitting one must guard ... In order to hit with effect, the enemy must be taken off his guard.
B. H. Liddell Hart