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3 - The Armchair Captain

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 November 2022

Peter Lorge
Affiliation:
Vanderbilt University, Tennessee
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Summary

Basil Liddell Hart created the term “indirect approach to strategy.” It was first articulated in 1927, and then appeared in its fully developed form in his 1929 book The Decisive Wars of History, which would eventually be republished as Strategy: The Indirect Approach in 1967. Liddell Hart’s views on warfare made him a controversial figure in the 1920s and 1930s, and his legacy after his death in 1970 remains unclear. For a time in the 1930s he was considered one of the greatest writers on war, if not thegreatest, at least in the Anglo-American world. His reputation collapsed at the beginning of World War II, but had recovered after the war so that by the late 1950s he was once again, at least in Samuel Griffith’s eyes, the most important strategist in the world. Today he is entirely unknown outside a very narrow academic community. His contributions to strategic thinking in the 1920s and 1930s were distorted by two factors: his commitment to preventing Britain from repeating its performance in World War I, and his need to earn a living as a writer. He took intellectual shortcuts, found the answers in history that he wanted to find regardless of the evidence, and argued for negotiating with Hitler during World War II. Liddell Hart had played an important role, along with his friend J. F. C. Fuller, in promoting mobile, mechanized warfare, particularly tanks.

Type
Chapter
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Sun Tzu in the West
The Anglo-American Art of War
, pp. 63 - 86
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2022

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  • The Armchair Captain
  • Peter Lorge, Vanderbilt University, Tennessee
  • Book: Sun Tzu in the West
  • Online publication: 03 November 2022
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108902687.004
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  • The Armchair Captain
  • Peter Lorge, Vanderbilt University, Tennessee
  • Book: Sun Tzu in the West
  • Online publication: 03 November 2022
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108902687.004
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • The Armchair Captain
  • Peter Lorge, Vanderbilt University, Tennessee
  • Book: Sun Tzu in the West
  • Online publication: 03 November 2022
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108902687.004
Available formats
×