B. H. Liddell Hart Quotes About Opponents
-
It should be the aim of grand strategy to discover and pierce the Achilles' heel of the opposing government's power to make war. Strategy, in turn, should seek to penetrate a joint in the harness of the opposing forces. To apply one's strength where the opponent is strong weakens oneself disproportionately to the effect attained. To strike with strong effect, one must strike at weakness.
→ -
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.
→ -
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.
→ -
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.
→ -
Direct pressure always tends to harden and consolidate the resistance of an opponent.
→ -
For if we merely take what obviously appears the line of least resistance, its obviousness will appeal to the opponent also; and this line may no longer be that of least resistance. In studying the physical aspect, we must never lose sight of the psychological, and only when both are combined is the strategy truly an indirect approach, calculated to dislocate the opponent's balance.
→
Related Authors
-
Ferdinand Foch Generalissimo -
Douglas Haig, 1st Earl Haig Senior officer -
J. F. C. Fuller Historian -
-
Sun Tzu Strategist -
Erich von Manstein Military Commander -
John Keegan Historian -
-
Carl von Clausewitz Military Historian -
Alfred Thayer Mahan Historian -
Martin Van Creveld Author -
Winston Churchill Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom -
Heinz Guderian Author -
John Terraine Historian -
Scipio Africanus Statesman -
T. E. Lawrence Military Officer -
Michael Howard Military Historian -
Antoine-Henri Jomini Writer -
Erwin Rommel Soldier -
Robert Graves Poet