B. H. Liddell Hart Quotes

War is delightful for those who don't know it

Read over and over again the campaigns of Alexander, Hannibal, Caesar, Gustavus, Turenne, Eugene and Frederic. ... This is the only way to become a great general and master the secrets of the art of war.

The first, the supreme, the most far-reaching act of judgment that the statesman and commander have to make is to establish ... the kind of war on which they are embarking.

And we will win the war, and there will be costs. But the military folks understand that, and so do I, and so does the Secretary of Defense.

The function and Navy in any future war will be to support the dominant air arm.

[Barack Obama] is sending more troops [to Afghanistan], but they have also realized that we are not going to win that war through guns and tanks. We have to engage the neighbors, and it is good that there is a non-military strategy in addition to a military strategy. It is, at least, encouraging. Whether it will work or not, the jury is still put.

If I had one more division like this First Marine Division I could win this war.

In war the chief incalculable is the human will, which manifests itself in resistance, which in turn lies in the province of tactics. Strategy has not to overcome resistance, except from nature. Its purpose is to diminish the possibility of resistance, and it seeks to fulfil this purpose by exploiting the elements of movement and surprise.

We're facing a very different sort of threat now, a more amorphous threat, al Qaeda, terrorism, and so on. And so the military has abandoned the two-war strategy.

There are roads which must not be followed, armies which must not be attacked, towns which must not be besieged, positions which must not be contested, commands of the sovereign which must not be obeyed.

Bring war material with you from home, but forage on the enemy... use the conquered foe to augment one's own strength.

If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat.

The military has no constant form, just as water has no constant shape - adapt as you face the enemy, without letting them know beforehand what you are going to do.

In Haig's presence, Kissinger referred pointedly to military men as "dumb, stupid animals to be used" as pawns for foreign policy.

In war there is but one favorable moment; the great art is to seize it!

When the enemy is driven back, we have failed, and when he is cut off, encircled and dispersed, we have succeeded.

The war with Iraq ... had to be one of the greatest non sequiturs in military history. Attacked by a gang composed largely of Islamic militants from Saudi Arabia, the United States countered by invading an unrelated country, and one of the most secular in the Middle East at that.

Pursue one great decisive aim with force and determination. The bloody solution of the crisis, the effort for the destruction of the enemy's forces, is the first-born son of war. Only great and general battles can produce great results. Blood is the price of victory.

In order to assure an adequate national defense, it is necessary - and sufficient - to be in a position in case of war to conquer the command of the air.

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.

The American military will never lose the war in Iraqif lost, it will be lost by a lack of political will.

Know the enemy and know yourself.

In war, the moral is to the physical as three is to one.

I am quite confident that in the foreseeable future armed conflict will not take the form of huge land armies facing each other across extended battle lines, as they did in World War I and World War II or, for that matter, as they would have if NATO had faced the Warsaw Pact on the field of battle.