Strategy

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Summary: Speed and Surprise win wars
Review: The classic strategy book that emphasizes a flexible, decentralized chain of command over the older centralized chain of command.

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Summary: Brilliant!
Review: This book is a must read for anybody mildly interested in war and/or strategy. It is well written and follows a logical path anybody can follow. The relevance of his theories can be seen in action when analyzing any of the successful military commanders of WWII: from Patton to Rommel, from Guderian to McArthur, from Manstein to Luck. The only bad part about the whole book is that Hart enjoys to blow his own horn a bit. Fortunately this doesn't happen very often, but when it does it is quite irritating. That put aside the book is still just plain brilliant and the strategy put forward so logical that one can overlook his horn blowing. I'm sure going to employ his stratagy in my next 'Age of Empires' game, that's for sure!

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Summary: A cornerstone work in the area of military strategy
Review: This book is one of the most referred to works in military literature topped only by Sun Tzu's 'Art of War' or possibly Clauswits' 'On War'in my experience. It is a must read for any serious student of military history. Having said that, I found the book rather dry and plodding with a style that I found too wordy and self-aggrandizing. I'm glad I read this book but my advice would be to try to find this book in a library before purchasing it sight unseen.

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Summary: Arguably the best book on strategy available
Review: This book was used by the Air Force for training 10 years ago; I don't know whether it still is (it certainly should be). The book is divided into two sections, a survey of military strategy from ancient history through the end of WWII, and then a summation and analysis of the lessons learned (with some discussion of the pros and cons of Clausewitz's On War). While a bit dense, the survey is important as it gives you a much better understanding of Liddell Hart's brilliant indirect approach.

Liddell Hart does not follow the Clausewitz-ian theory that "blood is the price of victory". Rather he views strategy as a way to minimize the need for armed conflict through moral and physical dislocation of ones enemy. He also keeps an eye on grand strategy and the quality of the peace that is to be achieved after a conflict (something that Clausewitz loses track of).

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Summary: "indirect approach" earned him the place in history
Review: This is a book, I believe, to be remembered among the ranks of "sun zi bing fa(the art of war)" and "on war". I read its Chinese edition ten years ago, and keep it ever since. On the first sight of this new edition in the bookstore, I bought it

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Summary: Brilliant work
Review: This is a brilliant book. The author surveys history's greatest campaigns to illustrate the "indirect approach" and the virtues of mobility in both offense and defense. Mostly the secret is about avoiding contact until you can position your forces in such a way that victory is assured or almost assured. Unfortunately this book is not meant for the casual reader. It's difficult to read and requires a lot of thought to properly absorb the author's concepts. Moreover, the author assumes the reader knows much of the history of several battles and the leading figures.

Some may argue that outflanking an opponent is obvious and hardly worth the long chapters that Liddell Hart devotes to it. It's true that the object is to dislocate an enemy's defenses by taking the route of least resistance to turn the opponent's moral and physical position. Yet this misses the crucial point. The route of least resistance is the route of least expectation. Making the route of least expectation one that puts your forces in a superior position requires knowing the mind of the opposing general. Then you must lure your opponent by playing on those expectations, or altering his expectations in a way that promotes your intentions. As an example, Liddell Hart takes Napoleon's victory at Austerlitz, where the French leader lured the Russian's into a valley by presenting them with a relatively weak force, then he reinforced this perception of weakness by sending an offer of peace to the Austrians (the Russian's ally). Next, Napoleon lured the Russians to extend their left wing by presenting another seemingly "vulnerable" target before he struck at a crucial joint in the Russian lines and created such a decisive victory that Austria surrendered within 24 hours.

If you choose to read this book, prepare to spend a good amount of time considering the subtlety of the author's concepts, or else you will find it disappointing.

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Summary: Not enough maps
Review: This is an excellent work that everyone should read. However, if you are planning on reading this book I would suggest that you find an historical atlas that illustrates these battles, because there are not enough maps in this volume.

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Summary: "Strategy" is great for some, and a nice read for anybody.
Review: 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."

My experience was more like that of Prof. Domicio Proenca Jr., except that Clausewitz doesn't work for me. I found Machiavelli much more helpful as a philosopher of politics-including-war, and J.F.C. Fuller more helpful in interpreting the lessons of the careers of top generals. For me, David G. Chandler strikes the right balance in "The Art Of Warfare On Land": he grossly simplifies Liddell Hart's "indirect approach" and calls it one of the seven or eight "classical manoeuvres of warfare" -- a fine thing, in other words, always to be kept in mind, but not the only tactical tool you'll ever need, use or want to own.

I think if you're a paper-and-pencil (or roll the dice or free-form) war-fighter, looking to "lift your game", to impress a smart, well-read gamemaster or even to learn to gamemaster yourself, it's not a question of signing up with the "one true religiously correct way of war" but of (reading military history and) finding the paper coach or coaches who will help you most. You want to make the best decisions, not write the most prestigious footnotes, yes?

Liddell Hart might be the coach for you, and if so you'll soon know it. "Strategy" is practical. Liddell Hart meant for his ideas to be grasped quickly and applied by warriors, not just critics. His writing is beautifully clear, so you won't waste weeks, as you can do with a prolix and murky writer, looking up obscure battles and going: "What is he really saying? Am I doing this wrong? Or what?"

Another good point about Liddell Hart is that it's quite OK to take his ideas wildly out of context and use them in any whacky sort of situation: if there's Klingons on the starboard bow and elves and orcs slugging it out on-planet, you can still look for an indirect approach.

Clausewitz's "On War" is definitely one of the books you should look at. His fans are numerous. But his military thought is anchored in his time and place in Prussia, and shouldn't be read or applied wildly out of context. Reading and applying things wildly out of context is exactly the point to reading military history for games. Machiavelli and Sun Tzu have similar (but in my opinion lesser) faults of focusing on Rome/Italy and on ancient China. "Strategy" is meant to be used in all sorts of situations nobody had thought of before, including yours.

"Strategy" is one of the first books I would recommend any gamer to get hold of if they are having trouble graping what to do when war arises. It may do you a lot of good, and if it does you'll be in great company with Monty.

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Summary: The Humanity of Hart triumphs over Clausewitz
Review: Those that are critical of Sir B.H. Liddell-Hart and this, his masterpiece, Strategy--THE MOST IMPORTANT MILITARY BOOK EVER WRITTEN, period---miss his humanity, miss their own and end up in a bloodbath of frontal attrition guided by such over-rated lunatics as von Clausewitz. Watch out for these "fog of war" folks and see to it that they never command men in battle. If one is so jealous of another's intellect when it supplies one methods to save lives that its more important to criticize and revert to something inferior that will result in needless deaths, that person's humanity is weak and in question. Hart was a Captain in the British Army in WWI where he was shot at, gassed and saw first-hand the horror of Clausewitz's "climactic battle" mentality in action (not arm-chair book reviews) when nation-states duel it out and men are torn apart horribly. Had the former lived longer, he would have seen that his theories codified in On War are murderous lies that killed a generation of humanity in 1914-18 when applied to mechanized, TOTAL WAR. When one considers that if these men had lived and not been pawns in a nation-state parlor game of von Clausewitz, how many would have discovered, invented and cured many of man's ills. We will never know. Hart, stung from this experience knew there had to be a better way, and found it. If there was disgust, it was from his humanity crying out against such needless losses.

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!

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Summary: The best guide to Military Strategy since Sun Tzu.
Review: Throughout history, leaders have sought the means by which to wage successful war. Not since Sun Tzu, circa 500 BC, has an author so cleary communicated the ways and means to obtain this elusive goal. Easily acknowledged as one of the greatest military strategists of the 20th century, Liddell Hart has influnced many great military leaders including Patton, Rommel. Reviewing military campaigns from 4000 BC thru the Arab- Israel war of 1948, Liddel Hart shows again and again that the only successful approach to war is the Indirect approach. A must read for anyone intrested in Military History or in the subtlies of grand strategy