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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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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
Effort
Opponent
Startles
Moving
Opponents
Lures
Effective
Jitsu
False
Lever
Turned
Levers
Approach
Overthrow
Military
Indirect
Move
Lure
More quotes by B. H. Liddell Hart
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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Loss of hope rather than loss of life is what decides the issues of war. But helplessness induces hopelessness.
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The urge to gain release from tension by action is a precipitating cause of war.
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Direct pressure always tends to harden and consolidate the resistance of an opponent.
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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.
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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.
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War is always a matter of doing evil in the hope that good may come of it.
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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.
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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.
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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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While hitting one must guard ... In order to hit with effect, the enemy must be taken off his guard.
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If you find your opponent in a strong position costly to force, you should leave him a line of retreat as the quickest way of loosening his resistance. It should, equally, be a principle of policy, especially in war, to provide your opponent with a ladder by which he can climb down.
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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.
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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 dangerous error is failure to recognize our own tendency to error.
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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.
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A complacent satisfaction with present knowledge is the chief bar to the pursuit of knowledge.
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The search for the truth for truth's sake is the mark of the historian.
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No man can exactly calculate the capacity of human genius and stupidity, nor the incapacity of will.
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