Quotes from Martin Van Creveld

Though Moltke was working with subordinates who were totally lacking in comprehension for whatever strategic plans he may have entertained and who on occasion abused the independence granted them, those plans were sufficiently flexible to accommodate errors; that is, a large safety margin was left to ensure that mistakes would not develop into catastrophes.

There is equality before God and there is equality here on earth. There is natural equality and there is the kind of equality that human society creates.

As so often in history, equality for some can only be achieved by discriminating against all the rest.

According to Clausewitz, the purpose of studying war was to provide commanders with a sound basis for their thinking and render it unnecessary to reinvent the wheel with every new situation.

However much some people may resent the fact, in nature inequality and not equality seems to be the rule.

Inequality, in other words, is precisely the principle upon which their social life is based and is made possible.

a process by which we co-ordinate our ideas, define the meaning of the words we use, grasp the difference between essential and unessential factors, and fix and expose the fundamental data on which everyone is agreed. In this way we prepare the apparatus of practical discussion…. Without such an apparatus no two men can even think on the same line; much less can they ever hope to detach the real point of difference that divides them and isolate it for quiet solution.

A closer examination of the facts would have shown that hordes of perfectly free men and women enjoying equal authority, status and access to resources of every kind, including each other's sexuality, have never existed and probably could not have existed. To paraphrase Hobbes, perfect equality, like its concomitant perfect liberty, can only exist when each individual lives alone in a desert, where it is meaningless.

Herman Melville's short story, "Bartleby the Scrivener.

In the early 1990s, for example, 300 million people lived in countries where men's life expectancy was higher than that of women. Today, the number is practically zero.

In The Prince he says that "a just war is a necessary war," thus cutting through the Gordian knot formed by endless Medieval discussions of Just War from Saint Augustine to Saint Thomas Aquinas.

Men's lot in life is endless hard work whose fruits will be consumed largely by others. The more men bring in, the greater the demands. Should men fail, they may lose both what they made and those to whom they gave it. Perhaps the most terrifying thing about Melville's story is that, at times, Bartleby's behavior and fate can tempt even the most active and successful man.

Appraise it [war] in terms of the five fundamental factors," says Sun Tzu. "The first of these factors is moral influence… by moral influence I mean that which causes the people to be in harmony with their leaders, so that they will accompany them in life and unto death without fear of mortal peril." In the words of Sun Pin, "engaging in a battle without righteousness, no one under Heaven would be able to be solid and strong.

America's current economic decline must be halted, or else one day the crime that is rampant in the streets of New York and Washington, D.C. may develop into low intensity conflict by coalescing along racial, religious, social, and political lines, and run completely out of control

Just as warfare has often served as inspiration for wargames, so wargames can be, and often have been, played not just by amateurs (from the Latin amatores, lovers) for their own sake but by the military for training, planning, and preparation too. To the extent that they allow and force players to strategize, indeed, they are not merely the best form of training but the only available one.

As a result, from 1945 on general works which tried to come to grips with the nature of war very often devoted a separate chapter to guerrilla warfare. They almost treated it as if it stood in no relation to anything else.

However, by 1990, at the latest, the Clausewitzian framework was beginning to show serious cracks. As has just been said, it proved incapable of incorporating warfare by, or against, non-state actors.

The way Lind sees it, the only Western commander who ever mastered third-generation warfare was George Patton. All others remained stuck in second-generation warfare, a blunt, clumsy instrument that had long outlived its usefulness and only worked because of the overwhelming advantage in firepower they enjoyed over Germany.

The non-state organizations that wage it rely largely on terrorism, guerrilla tactics, and popular insurgencies. However, they also engage in small-scale conventional warfare. The perfect examples are Hezbollah in 2006 and Daesh (ISIS) in 2014–2015. Neither organization is a state. Neither maintains the usual distinctions between government, armed forces, and people. However, both have enough money, troops, and conventional weapons to do more than wage terrorism and guerrilla alone.

The largest concentrations of women were found in industries with the smallest number of accidents. In such industries, women outnumbered men nearly four to one. Conversely, in the most dangerous places, there were hardly any women at all.[367]

The first is extreme flexibility which will enable one to take advantage of fleeting opportunities. Said Sun Tzu, "an army is like water which adapts itself to the configuration of the ground.

Viel Leisten - wenig hervortreten - mehr sein als scheinen." Alfred Graf von Schlieffen, Generalfeldmarschall, (* 28. Februar 1833 in Berlin; † 4. Januar 1913 ebenda)

In fact, it is not impossible that one day the sperm-less fertilization of eggs — based on triggering the genetic code present in any cell of the body — will become a reality.[131]

Our armed forces are not the thirtieth strongest in the world, but rather the second or third. We have the capability to take the world down with us. And I can assure you that this will happen before Israel goes under.