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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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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
Battle
Minded
Short
Weapon
War
Factors
Power
Psychological
Soldier
Underrate
Importance
Sighted
Air
Aviation
Weapons
Soldiers

More quotes by B. H. Liddell Hart

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Avoid self-righteousness like the devil- nothing is so self-blinding.
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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.
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Guerrilla war is a kind of war waged by the few but dependent on the support of many.
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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.
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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.
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Direct pressure always tends to harden and consolidate the resistance of an opponent.
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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.
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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.
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With growing experience, all skillful commanders sought to profit by the power of the defensive, even when on the offensive.
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If you wish for peace, understand war.
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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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A complacent satisfaction with present knowledge is the chief bar to the pursuit of knowledge.
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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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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The urge to gain release from tension by action is a precipitating cause of war.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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