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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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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
Effect
Dispositions
Approach
Gauge
Effects
Gauges
Military
Indirect
True
Opponent
Mind
Sought
Disposition
Opponents
Dislocation

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Avoid self-righteousness like the devil- nothing is so self-blinding.
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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.
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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.
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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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Direct pressure always tends to harden and consolidate the resistance of an opponent.
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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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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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A complacent satisfaction with present knowledge is the chief bar to the pursuit of knowledge.
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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.
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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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The theory of the indirect approach operates on the line of least expectation.
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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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As has happened so often in history, victory had bred a complacency and fostered an orthodoxy which led to defeat in the next war.
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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.
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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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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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No man can exactly calculate the capacity of human genius and stupidity, nor the incapacity of will.
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If you wish for peace, understand war.
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The most dangerous error is failure to recognize our own tendency to error.
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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.
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