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

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 predominance of moral factors in all military decisions. On them constantly turns the issue of war and battle. In the history of war they form the more constant factors, changing only in degree, whereas the physical factors are different in almost every war and every military situation.
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] 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
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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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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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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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The unexpected cannot guarantee success, but it guarantees the best chance of success.
B. H. Liddell Hart
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The search for the truth for truth's sake is the mark of the historian.
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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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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A complacent satisfaction with present knowledge is the chief bar to the pursuit of knowledge.
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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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
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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
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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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Direct pressure always tends to harden and consolidate the resistance of an opponent.
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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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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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