“Where there is selection there is art.” —BH Liddell Hart.
Saved by sari and
“Where there is selection there is art.” —BH Liddell Hart.
The wise warrior avoids the battle.
―Sun Tzu, The Art of War
Since Sun Tzu had principally written about military combat, I started diving into military history in the hope of finding other lessons. I became obsessively fascinated by the extensive use of maps in battle and for learning throughout history. Topographical intelligence became a hugely important and decisive factor in numerous battles of the Amer... See more
Simon Wardley • Highlights From medium.com
For whoever habitually suppresses the truth in the interests of tact will produce a deformity from the womb of his thought.
B.H. Liddell Hart • Why Don't We Learn from History?
Begin with theory and practice, both of which Clausewitz and Tolstoy respect without enslaving themselves to either. It’s as if, in their thinking, abstraction and specificity reinforce each other, but never in predetermined proportions. Each situation requires a balancing derived from judgment and arising from experience, skills acquired by learni
... See moreJohn Lewis Gaddis • On Grand Strategy
"Plans are worthless, but planning is everything"-
Dwight D. Eisenhower.
[note that this neatly hinges the tension between the strategic and tactical modes of engagement]
“No other human activity is so continuously or universally bound up with chance,” Clausewitz writes of war in On War. It’s a “paradoxical trinity,” composed of the passions that cause combatants to risk their lives, the skill of their commanders, and the coherence of the political objectives for which the war is being fought. Only the last is fully
... See more