Rating: 
Summary: "Business", "Theatre", "Politics"
Review: "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
Rating: 
Summary: A good, swift summary...
Review: ...of the history of war. Allows you to read thru thousands of years, showing how the strategy was formed, used and changed. Serious students of history should use it to get the bare facts, to understand how the results of one war changed how the next one might be fought. BUT for detailed work, I suggest getting books that give details about the conflict you are interested in.
Rating:
Summary: Exceptional...
Review: A truly exceptional book on Strategy. Thorough and well written, the book is easy to read yet very deep in its treatment of the topic. If you buy only one book on strategy, this should be it.
Rating:
Summary: An authority on War and Strategy
Review: 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.
Rating:
Summary: An Outstanding Book on Strategy
Review: Although I teach corporate strategy, I read this classic work on military strategy to broaden my understanding of the nature of strategy. In particular, this book emphasized the utility of the indirect versus direct attack, and drew examples from the Civil War, WWI, and WWII. Unlike Clauswitz approach of massing strength and marching up the middle as expected by the enemy, Hart's indirect attack epitomizes the expression, "Choose your battles". This means forcing the enemy to engage when and where you prefer, in a battle that works to your advantage and their disadvantage. The indirect attack is the unexpected route; it opens up a new front where the foe is unprepared to fight, much like the action taken by Norman Schwartzkopf in Desert Storm with his now famous "left hook" maneuver. The logic of the indirect attack is that it changes the point of engagement at an inopportune moment for the enemy, and in doing so, captures the initiative, creates a dilemma for the opposition, gains the psychological upper hand by catching the opponent off-guard and confusing their response.
The indirect strategy applies equally well to the military as it does to business, not to mention football, chess, politics, debate, the list goes on. I see parallels in this, for example, with Hewlett-Packard's indirect attack on the computer industry, which avoided its rivals superior strength in PCs, and instead attacked at the periphery in the printer market where the rivals were weak and caught by surprise. Overall a very interesting book.
Rating:
Summary: An Outstanding Book on Strategy
Review: Although I teach corporate strategy, I read this classic work on military strategy to broaden my understanding of the nature of strategy. In particular, this book emphasized the utility of the indirect versus direct attack, and drew examples from the Civil War, WWI, and WWII. Unlike Clauswitz approach of massing strength and marching up the middle as expected by the enemy, Hart's indirect attack epitomizes the expression, "Choose your battles". This means forcing the enemy to engage when and where you prefer, in a battle that works to your advantage and their disadvantage. The indirect attack is the unexpected route; it opens up a new front where the foe is unprepared to fight, much like the action taken by Norman Schwartzkopf in Desert Storm with his now famous "left hook" maneuver. The logic of the indirect attack is that it changes the point of engagement at an inopportune moment for the enemy, and in doing so, captures the initiative, creates a dilemma for the opposition, gains the psychological upper hand by catching the opponent off-guard and confusing their response.
The indirect strategy applies equally well to the military as it does to business, not to mention football, chess, politics, debate, the list goes on. I see parallels in this, for example, with Hewlett-Packard's indirect attack on the computer industry, which avoided its rivals superior strength in PCs, and instead attacked at the periphery in the printer market where the rivals were weak and caught by surprise. Overall a very interesting book.
Rating: 
Summary: A masterpiece of theory from from a master strategist
Review: An early tank warfare theorist, Liddell Hart championed the cause of mobility in the field and rapid deployment. Largely ignored by the British, his theories were put into practice by the German High Command, which was influenced by Liddell Hart in their plans for Blitzkrieg in WWII. It wasn't until the North African Campaign, when O'Connor rolled backed Graziani's "grey tide" of Italians by rapid movement, capturing thousands of previously victorious Axis troops, that the British took Liddell Hart seriously enough to put his theories to use on the offensive. When the Americans arrived, the Allies were ready to face Rommel, who had also steeped himself in Liddell Hart's theories. The drama of the campaign in central North Africa is, in part, the drama of two sides using different versions of the author's theories. In "Strategy," we have the thoughts of the mature man, one who has seen that the atomic bomb can stop a rapid deployment in its tracks, and who realizes that the West's military superiority over the rest of the world will end with the proliferation of nuclear weapons. Nuclear weapons are now available to frequent military rivals India and Pakistan (whose "Islamic Bomb" secrets were recently transmitted to other Muslim nations by one of the bomb's designers), and to North Korea -- which had fought the West to a bloody standstill in Liddell Hart's lifetime. The old theories of rapid deployment which were the hallmark of Liddell Hart's earlier thought are STILL believed in by many military leaders, ready, as so often, to fight the LAST war over again. Liddell Hart's too brief comments about war in the age of nuclear weapons are all the more important to us today, lest we find ourselves caught up in an unwinnable war because of poor strategy. Liddell Hart's conclusions on "industrial bombing" were that it was NOT a useful means of warfare. We may suggest, based upon very recent military experience, that today's aerial campaign of "awe and terror" rapidly lead's to tommorrow's "guerrila war" on the ground, down and dirty, and very, very bloody. Liddell Hart's chapter on "Guerilla War" helps to illustrate the bloody catastrophes of the Viet Nam era and the current insurgency in Iraq. "Strategy" is a bit out-of-date, but a wise reader can discern where Liddell Hart's theories WOULD have led had he lived a few years longer. I rate "Stragey" 5 stars, up from my earlier rating of 4 stars, which I gave it before the Iraq "insurgency" showed that Basil Liddell Hart knew his stuff: the war is unfolding as "Strategy" suggests that it would. This book is A MUST READ for anyone interested in strategy, whether for playing war games or waging a real war.
Rating:
Summary: A masterpiece of theory from from a master strategist
Review: An early tank warfare theorist, Liddell Hart championed the cause of mobility in the field and rapid deployment. Largely ignored by the British, his theories were put into practice by the German High Command, which was influenced by Liddell Hart in their plans for Blitzkrieg in WWII. It wasn't until the North African Campaign, when O'Connor rolled backed Graziani's "grey tide" of Italians by rapid movement, capturing thousands of previously victorious Axis troops, that the British took Liddell Hart seriously enough to put his theories to use on the offensive. When the Americans arrived, the Allies were ready to face Rommel, who had also steeped himself in Liddell Hart's theories. The drama of the campaign in central North Africa is, in part, the drama of two sides using different versions of the author's theories. In "Strategy," we have the thoughts of the mature man, one who has seen that the atomic bomb can stop a rapid deployment in its tracks, and who realizes that the West's military superiority over the rest of the world will end with the proliferation of nuclear weapons.
Rating:
Summary: As relevant today as in acient times
Review: B. H. Lidell Hart has written a masterpiece in "Strategy". His survey of history and it's successful generals all point to one, irrepressible conclusion; that to win, you must do the unexpected. Hart's main contention is that from acient to modern times, the generals who win, and win consistently, do so not by beating their heads against impregnable positions or trying to bring the enemy's main body to battle by direct action. Instead, he argues that in war, the object is to achieve victory at the least cost--in other words, use economy of force. The "indirect method" which he speaks of has been tested over time, and has proven itself repeatedly. Of the truly decisive campaigns from all of history, 90% of them were won, not by direct assault, but by maneuver, cunning, and by forcing an enemy army to prepare for multiple contingencies. In short, this book is not a handguide to winning a war, and does not present itself as such. What Hart does is show what history's successful captains have done, and leaves the reader to draw his own conclusions, and apply the facts that Hart presents. Overall, a well-written survery of military history that tests many of our preconcieved notions military success.
Rating:
Summary: As relevant today as in acient times
Review: B. H. Lidell Hart has written a masterpiece in "Strategy". His survey of history and it's successful generals all point to one, irrepressible conclusion; that to win, you must do the unexpected. Hart's main contention is that from acient to modern times, the generals who win, and win consistently, do so not by beating their heads against impregnable positions or trying to bring the enemy's main body to battle by direct action. Instead, he argues that in war, the object is to achieve victory at the least cost--in other words, use economy of force. The "indirect method" which he speaks of has been tested over time, and has proven itself repeatedly. Of the truly decisive campaigns from all of history, 90% of them were won, not by direct assault, but by maneuver, cunning, and by forcing an enemy army to prepare for multiple contingencies. In short, this book is not a handguide to winning a war, and does not present itself as such. What Hart does is show what history's successful captains have done, and leaves the reader to draw his own conclusions, and apply the facts that Hart presents. Overall, a well-written survery of military history that tests many of our preconcieved notions military success.
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