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Strategy: Second Revised Edition (Meridian) (Paperback)
by B. H. liddell Hart
| Category:
Strategy, Military strategy |
| Market price: ¥ 138.00
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¥ 118.00
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 Good for Gifts |
| MSL Pointer Review:
Written in a lucid manner, thorough and full of life, this is an exceptional treatise on strategy. |
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Author: B. H. liddell Hart
Publisher: Plume; 2nd/Rev edition
Pub. in: March, 1991
ISBN: 0452010713
Pages: 448
Measurements: 8.0 x 5.3 x 1.0 inches
Origin of product: USA
Order code: BA00506
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- MSL Picks -
This is what Montgomery, surely an expert, said about Liddell Hart, in the introduction to Montgomery's "A Concise History Of Warfare":
"I did make attempts to read the writings of Clausewitz and Jomini but I couldn't take them in… Of the military historians of my own nation, language and times, I found Sir Basil Liddell Hart far and away the best: his military thinking has always appealed to me, and it had a definite influence on my own conduct of the war.Some historians are wise after the event; Liddell Hart was wise before the event - a prophet at last honoured in his own country. Where he stands supreme is that not only is he an historian, hut he is also a theorist, and had produced from his vast knowledge a philosophy of war; and unlike many theorists he has generally proved to be right."
Hart does an amazing job analyzing past wars to come up with a new doctrine for military thought. His emphasis on the militaristic indirect approach to military engagements, and how it coincides with what he calls the "grand" strategy is definetely worth the attention of any tactician, as well as any history buff. Hart's book has very smooth transition between his topics of discussion, and even readers who are fairly new to the subject of war can pick this book up and understand it. Strategy can also be applied to everyday situations, and would be a great read for business adventurists. Hart really has put some thought into his creation, and it is a definite must read!
Target readers:
General readers
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From the Publisher:
This is the classic book on war as we know it. During his long life, Basil H. Liddell Hart was considered one of the world's foremost military thinkers - a man generally regarded as the "Clausewitz of the 20th century."
Liddell Hart stressed movement, flexibilty, surprise. He saw that in most military campaigns dislocation of the enemy's psychological and physical balance is prelude to victory. This dislocation results from a strategic indirect approach. Reflect for a moment on the results of direct confrontation (trench war in WW I) versus indirect dislocation (Blitzkreig in WW II). Liddell Hart is also tonic for business and political planning: just change the vocabulary and his concepts fit.
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Library Journal (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-10 00:00>
The most important book by one of the outstanding military authorities of our time. |
Zaidi (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-10 00:00>
Adjust your end to your means.
Clear sight and cool calculation should prevail. Do not bite off more than you can chew. Keep a clear sense of what is possible. Face facts while preserving faith. Confidence will be of no avail if the troops are run down.
Keep your object always in mind, while adapting your plan to circumstances
Recognize that alternatives exist but make sure they all bear on the object. Weigh the feasibility of attaining an objective against its contribution to the attainment of the end in mind.
Choose the line (or course) of least expectation.
Put yourself in your opposition's shoes and try to see what course of action he will see as least probable and thus not try to forestall.
Exploit the line of least resistance - so long as it can lead you to any objective that would contribute to your underlying object.
Seize on opportunity - but not any opportunity. Tactically, this refers to following up on success; strategically, it refers to the management and deployment of your reserves.
Take a line of operation which offers alternative objectives.
Choose a single course of action that could have several objectives; do not let your actions reveal your objectives. This puts your opponent on the horns of a dilemma. It introduces uncertainty regarding that which is to be guarded against.
Ensure that both plans and dispositions are flexible - adaptable to circumstances.
Include contingencies or next steps - for success as well as failure. Organize and deploy your resources in ways that facilitate adaptation to either.
Do not throw your weight into a stroke whilst your opponent is on guard - whilst he is well placed to parry or evade it.
Unless your opponent is much inferior, do not attack until he has been disorganized and demoralized. Psychological warfare precedes physical warfare. Similarly, physical warfare can be psychological in nature.
Do not renew an attack along the same line (or in the same form) after it has once failed.
If at first you don't succeed, give up. Your reinforcements will likely be matched by the enemy. Moreover, successfully repulsing you the first time will morally strengthen him for the second.
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An American reader (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-10 00:00>
When I first flipped through the book and read the reviews, it looked as if I was going to be getting into some serious in-depth and perceptive analysis. But the more I read of it, the more it started to sound like a high school thesis essay: Hart starts with a single, simple thesis - that one should be indirect as opposed to direct - and, evidently owing to his insecurity due to previous encounters with skeptics, feels obligated to devote the entire 500-odd page book to monotonously proving this point. He never goes into more depth into an area of history than the bare minimum he needs to make his argument, and his argument is always the same, showing precious little depth or insight. A concurrent disadvantage is that there is never enough info given on any historical incident that one would be able to draw any real independent conclusions, and therefore one is obliged to take his word for it.
Basil basically thinks that he is amazingly smart and perceptive to realize that in war it is generally advantagious to be indirect - to strike at weak points, take unexpected paths, try to imbalance your enemy etc. When I was twelve years old, having only gathered the barest of the bare snippits of military history in my head, and playing wargames (which I happened to not be very good at at the time), I figured this out pretty quickly. So basically I don't know about anyone else, but in my percpetion the Hart's thesis is a basic and obvious fact of strategy, and no one should need 500 pages to convince them of this.
whether moves were direct or indirect - there is no room for other factors, other figurings, other causes in his mind. He provides no room in his mind for the advantages of direct, orthodox strategies, and it apperently never occurs to him that there are usually good reasons (i.e. other than stupidity, which seems to be his opinion), why orthodox strategies are orthodox. It would be nice if we could always have an incompetent foe who would allow us to outflank him and be led by the nose, but this is not always possible - war is the realm of the pragmatist, and the theories and ideas forwarded in this book are filthily romantic.
In closing, I would say that Hart indeed forwards many good ideas, and gives many good examples, but these are in the muddle with such a shallow and careless mess that you would be better off simply reading REAL classics, such as Sun Tzu, and then studying military history in depth, and drawing your own conclusions based on these. I do not feel that B. H. Liddell Hart's book is truly worth it in any dimension. |
An American reader (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-10 00:00>
"Business", "Theatre", or "Politics"; that B.H. Liddell Hart was a soldier and a military theorist/historian rather than businessman, a playwright or a politician is the only reason this work is not otherwise so named, and thus focused. His own limited martial experience, later enlightened and informed by exhaustive professional study, enabled his use of the history of warfare for a verdant field of analogy, metaphor and example. An alternate approach to the study of waging war is expressly not his chief intent, however. Advocacy for the "indirect approach" is his ultimate purpose.
Unlike many military writers, ancient and modern, who reduce their theories to slim maxims out of "superficial obfuscation" more often than "genuine profundity" Liddell Hart's readers are treated to illustrations from the Hoplites of classical Greece, to the hydrogen bomb and the early Cold War. That the "consequences of failure in war are greater than in any other human enterprise", Liddell Hart's use of military examples is especially useful in communicating his main; though not necessarily exclusively military, premise.
The author does not offer a cursory introduction and overview to military history and strategy, but he carefully selects and examines contests of will, some of them bloodless, which convincingly support his central theme: the superiority of "expending brains instead of blood", of "fighting with the legs instead of the fists". Moving always along the "line of least expectation" and striking with the greatest surprise. A commander's grasp of the "indirect approach"; while quantifiable in material and geographic victories, is best understood through its impact psychologically - the havoc and confusion it achieves in the mind of the opponent.
The aim of "grand strategy" then is the engineering of conditions, circumstances and perceptions which make ultimate defeat of an enemy on the battlefield an historic inevitability or a mere useful finality for a specific contest.
Though every vignette is culled from military history, minimum imagination and extrapolation will yield the obvious applicability of the "indirect approach" to business, romance, entertainment or politics - any field of human endeavor where one will contends for supremacy or influence over another.
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