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It is simply not true that war is solely a means to an end, nor do people necessarily fight in order to obtain this objective or that. In fact, the opposite is true: people very often take up one objective or another precisely in order that they may fight.

Martin Van Creveld

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Martin Van Creveld
Age: 78
Born: 1946
Born: March 5
Historian
Military Historian
University Teacher
Writer
R'dam
Martin Levi van Creveld
Another
Fight
Solely
True
Simply
Obtain
Order
Fighting
Objective
Ends
Fact
Precisely
May
War
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Take
Means
Opposite
Mean
Often
Opposites
People
Facts
Necessarily

More quotes by Martin Van Creveld

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Except when war is waged in a desert, noncombatants, also known as civilians or the people, constitute the great majority of those affected.
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A world without war is not in the cards.
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We possess several hundred atomic warheads and rockets and can launch them at targets in all directions, perhaps even at Rome. Most European capitals are targets of our air force.
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Assuming China does not become destabilized and continues to grow, it will no doubt develop a military program in proportion to its resources.
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As history since Hiroshima shows, the best, perhaps the only, way to curb war is to deter it with such overwhelming force as to turn it from a struggle into suicide.
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Our armed forces are not the thirtieth strongest in the world, but rather the second or third. We have the capability to take the world down with us. And I can assure you that this will happen before Israel goes under.
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I want to put any number of assorted 'ists' - such as relativists, deconstructionists, destructivists, postmodernists, the more maudlin kind of pacifists and feminists - firmly in their place.
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In the future as in the past, both Clausewitz and Sun Tzu will undoubtedly have a lot to offer.
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If you are strong and fighting the weak, then if you kill your opponent then you are a scoundrel... if you let him kill you, then you are an idiot.
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The problem is that you cannot prove yourself against someone who is much weaker than yourself.
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Never' is too much of a word. Nothing lasts forever.
Martin Van Creveld