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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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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
Military
Indirect
Peace
Wider
Experience
Theoretical
May
Infinitely
Best
Practicals
Even
Practical
Valuable
Training

More quotes by B. H. Liddell Hart

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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.
B. H. Liddell Hart
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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.
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 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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While hitting one must guard ... In order to hit with effect, the enemy must be taken off his guard.
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 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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The urge to gain release from tension by action is a precipitating cause of 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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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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The search for the truth for truth's sake is the mark of the historian.
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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[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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A complacent satisfaction with present knowledge is the chief bar to the pursuit of knowledge.
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 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 unexpected cannot guarantee success, but it guarantees the best chance of success.
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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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 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