Strategy: Second Revised Edition (Meridian)
by B. H. Liddell Hart

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Book Reviews of Strategy: Second Revised Edition (Meridian)

Book Review: The Humanity of Hart triumphs over Clausewitz
Summary: 5 Stars

Hart shows GOOD Generalship studies the lesson of history and learns how Commanders can defeat the enemy by realizing war is a mental contest, not a physical contest of annihilation---and to find the "center of gravity" holding your opponent together and to destroy it and collapse him. Hart finds this in the American Civil War where Sherman marched across the south and undid the Confederate's logistical means to fight by the technotactical ploy of "flying columns" free of reliance on railroad-based logistics which had fed thousands of men into predictable frontal conflicts killing hundreds of thousands of men. By not glorifying in climacttic battle but instead regaining maneuver, and having a strategic aim, Sherman while Grant held Lee's Army in the north, placed the homeland of the enemy at risk, collapsing him quickly and saving thousands of lives of people who were actually brethren. A burned farm can be replanted, a life lost is lost.

What is so brilliant about Strategy, is we can refer to it constantly for insights today. Hart is intellectually honest enough to state that against a guerrilla opponent there might not be a "center of gravity" to smash and collapse, we must use maneuver to unbalance his supplies and plans. There is no doubt that Hart's works while helping the bad guys initially (Germany 1939-1941) were later instrumental in helping the "good guys" (1941-present) free Europe, Asia, and keep the world free for the rest of the decade. Its too bad Hart was not alive today to update his strategems of the indirect approach for the 21st Century where 4th Generation Warfare means can bypass professional armies and strike directly at the will of the people to support a fight in the first place. An Army that does not have the humanity to realize that men are not mere machines to be discarded in a meat grinder of war is not fighting as well as it can and is out of touch with its own humanity--those that use Clausewitz who died before seeing the folly of his own lies in WWI to do this are criminal.

That some have used Hart, Sun Tzu and others to create a maneuverism panacea to play a tune that lazy American policy makers like (victories with low casualties) cannot be denied, since there are situations where the enemy is defending-in-depth and has his population totally mobilized for war. Hart admits this. Read Hart not his wannabe imitations like FMFM 1 by the marines; dig deep, think deep. In these situations, we will be hard pressed to find and defeat the enemy's center of cohesion, but this should always be our aim even if we have to fight hard to get there--something many in our military are not willing to spend money and train/equip to do.

Strategy is a masterpiece and one of our guides to defending freedom today and in the future, written by a man who suffered greatly to get his ideas known who surely will be rewarded in the future by the lives he saved by better militaries and better human conditions of peace.

Airborne, Sir Liddell-Hart!

Summary of Strategy: Second Revised Edition (Meridian)

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.

"The most important book by one of the outstanding military authorities of our time." (Library Journal)

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