B.H. Liddell Hart, A British historian, military strategist, and soldier, while redefining the strategic thought of the time, in this book emphasizes an indirect approach to strategy referring to major wars and ancient campaigns by many of the famous strategists and military generals & analyses the historical examples in which this indirect method was exploited ranging from the ancient Greek wars of the 5th century B.C. to the wars 20th century A.D.
This book substantiates its claims by explaining the theoretical and conceptual understanding of the approach, which includes the theory of strategy, its relation to policy, the difference between higher and grand strategy, and its aims and actions. It also refers to the letters in the latter part of the book that military personnel and commanding officers wrote to the author acknowledging its applicability and validity.
While acknowledging the fact that any theory of war which analyses a single campaign, unless based on, what the author calls it, ‘an extensive knowledge of the whole history is likely to lead us into pitfalls’, however, as he argues; “if a specific effect is seen to follow a specific cause in a score or more cases, in different epochs and diverse conditions, there is ground for regarding this cause as an integral part of any theory of war”.
Explaining the essence of the indirect approach, after cautious analysis of its rationale and its method, the author argues that the success of the strategy depends on a situation when the means are applied along the lines of least expectation and not along the lines of natural expectation because the latter consolidates the opponent’s balance and thus increase his resistance power. Applying a direct approach in a battle unless to have a clear superiority over many fronts will result merely in self-exhaustion. Even the superior force will tend to lose decisiveness.
The approach seems to have two origins: theoretical and empirical. The former is Clausewitz’s philosophical miscalculations of the direct approach, while the latter is its empirical failure and the subsequent destruction this directness wrought. Both of the factors mentioned above provided the epistemological foundation for this approach.
Moreover, it is the vastness of theoretical and likely empirical space that this approach (as a concept) can have, is what makes it broader and less prone to criticism albeit more prone in specific contexts, [1] not to mention the conventional critique that some critics make regarding the author’s tilt towards evading the importance of concentration of forces and direct approach. In other words, it is the epistemological and potential empirical vastness of its cause and effect that an indirect approach can have, which the direct approach, at least as analyzed by the former strategists lacks, not solely due to their negligence of its consideration but due its epistemologically restricted breadth of analysis.
However, let’s analyze the authors’ posture in explaining the historical events and formulating abstract maxims. It appears too intransigent even in case the events contradicted it, & the account of the possibility of which isn’t there in the book in the first place makes him accused of what academics term as ‘doctrinal blindness’. Moreover, the indifference to offensive posture in strategy may not work as explained by the author in some cases when the enemy has deep penetrating capabilities in the tactical sense or ideologically driven commitments & predatory aspirations of pre-emptive offense.
Also one can perceive the author’s eurocentrism in his analysis all the while disregarding the wars of the oriental world and its strategic significance in any theory of war. The argument loses its credibility and even becomes farther from the truth when the author bifurcates the warfare of what he calls ‘civilized states’ and predatory warfare including the bizarre claim of labeling the followers of the Islamic religion as fanatics, ignoring the fact and misinterpreting the reality that whenever the followers of early Muslim era waged a war, not only have they been clearly instructed to follow the Islamic law of warfare by their commanders, but the jurisprudential text upon which the whole structure of Islamic identity erects have its clear injunctions not only regarding the law of war but which is theoretically as well as practically in congruence with the international law of war today.
Of course, the author isn’t alone in emphasizing the importance of the indirect approach because it was put forward albeit differently by famous strategist Sun Tzu thousands of years ago[2]. What makes the latter different is the advantage the author has, having had to be alive in a period of turbulence and war between and among nation-states with modern technological intricacies and mechanization not to mention the experience of devastating two world wars.
The relevancy of this approach to strategy also grew, as the world has witnessed high-tech innovations in tactics including the ever-increasing importance of air and sea power, especially the development of tremendously powerful weapons with firepower that fundamentally altered the conventional war strategy.
Furthermore, the increasing interconnectedness of the world and swift means of communication, emergence, and development of mass media & information centers, decolonization, democratization, interdependence, and integration of the world economy made the usage of this approach more appealing in modern warfare.
These factors increased the importance of grand strategy which the author emphasized in this book. During the Cold War which dominated the international political & security arena, this approach was exploited in every sphere as the contenders didn’t wage war directly, but its culmination didn’t fade its relevancy as the unipolar order lasted not for very long as the multiple power centers emerged over time.
The importance of psychological factors as emphasized in the book can be observed in contemporary strategic thought, when the flow of information increases and the public participates, and takes an interest in debating & evaluating the state policy, as its perceptiveness increased in the post-ideology era not to mention the failed & flawed military interventions which claimed the lives of millions of unarmed civilians. This led to increasing abhorrence on behalf of the general population towards the idea of concentration of force.
The institutionalization of world politics and the desirability of peace in the post-1945 era led to the importance of its consideration in higher war policy of the countries intending to wage war as emphasized in the book because the use of force without the long-term objective of peace is not only unwise but self-exhausting which as the author argues as the most pertinent reason of state-decay in its history.
Also, the waves of decolonization & subsequent democratization brought the issue of civil-military relations to the forefront, about which this book speculates while discussing the relationship between strategy and policy drawing a clear line between the parameters of both and the possibility of encroachment of one on another and its implications.
As argued before, the theoretical foundations and practical application of this approach to strategy are subject to criticism, which consequently makes it more open to scrutiny, it is one of the most significant contributions to the scholarship of strategic studies due to the vastness of its perceived epistemological terrain as a theory and its flexibility of application on multiple levels as a practice.
[1 Mearsheimer, J. J. (1988). Liddell Hart and the Weight of History. Brassey’s Defence Publishers.
[2] Corneli, A. (1987). Sun Tzu and the Indirect Strategy. Rivista Di Studi Politici Internazionali, 54(3 (215)), 419–445.
