Antony Beevor Quotes

They will not fight you all except within fortified cities or from behind walls…

Further, a defensive policy involves the loss of the initiative, with all the consequent disadvantages to the defender.

Cities are made for enemies to destroy.

We used to fight the LRA with only one dimensional force that only walks on foot, but now, we have got multiple forces to fight the rebels.

I had my own battle tactics.

When you have to besiege a city for a long time, you must not destroy its trees, wielding an ax against them. You may eat of them, but you must not cut them down. Are the trees human, to withdraw before your siege?

Divide our forces to arouse the masses, concentrate our forces to deal with the enemy. The enemy advances, we retreat; the enemy camps, we harass; the enemy tires, we attack; the enemy retreats, we pursue. To extend stable base areas, employ the policy of advancing in waves; when pursued by a powerful enemy, employ the policy of circling around. Arouse the largest numbers of the masses in the shortest possible time and by the best possible methods.

Irregular war is far more intellectual than a bayonet charge.

We fought a military war; our opponents fought a political one… The North Vietnamese used their armed forces the way a bull-fighter uses his cape — to keep us lunging in areas of marginal political importance.

The consequences of U. S. superiority is that its opponents, both state and non-state actors, will have little choice but to resort to guerilla tactics and urban warfare because they simply cannot confront U. S. forces head on..

Do not march or precipitate your attack. The Saracens are like a torrent which is dangerous to stem … Be patient till they have loaded themselves with the encumbrances of wealth.

Hamas, we know, embeds missiles, embeds command-and-control units in civilian areas.

We see a transformation of warfare from the big armies and battlefields in open spaces to a fragmentation of armed groups and smaller armies, which move into city centres, which increasingly become the theatre of warfare.

Notifying the enemy in advance of our withdrawal dates or reassuring the enemy that we will not use certain capabilities like our ground forces should be avoided.

The fact is that as soon as they reach Baghdad gates, we will besiege them and slaughter them.

Laying siege to enemy-controlled cities allows attacking armies to keep their own casualties low by avoiding urban combat.

This boa, the American columns, are being besieged between Basra and other towns north, west, south and west of Basra… Now even the American command is under siege. We are hitting it from the north, east, south and west. We chase them here and they chase us there. But at the end we are the people who are laying siege to them. And it is not them who are besieging us.

They are still trying to bomb with artillery and rocket-propelled grenades to hit the Republican Guard who are controlling Saddam International Airport.

Hussein praised his sons for putting up a brave fight, noting that U.S. forces had surrounded their compound with advanced weaponry, ground troops and warplanes. In case that didn't work, U.S. forces were prepared to tell Janet Reno that a small Cuban boy was inside the house.

How can you lay siege to a whole country? Who is really under siege now? Baghdad cannot be besieged.

Paris must either not fall into the hands of the enemy or the enemy must find it only a wasteland.

Those skilled in attack move as from above the nine-fold heavens. Thus they are capable both of protecting themselves and of gaining complete victory.

We must make this campaign an exceedingly active one. Only thus can a weaker country cope with a stronger; it must make up in activity what it lacks in strength.

A powerful Navy we have always regarded as our proper and natural means of defense; and it has always been of defense that we have thought, never of aggression or of conquest. But who shall tell us now what sort of Navy to build? We shall take leave to be strong upon the seas, in the future as in the past; and there will be no thought of offense or provocation in that. Our ships are our natural bulwarks.

If you set out to take Vienna, take Vienna.