Deterrent or Defense: A Fresh Look at the West's Military Position

by B. H. Liddell Hart

Overview

Here is a much-needed assessment and summing-up on four current strategic situation by B. H. Liddell Hart, the leading military analyst of our time. Taking a clear, hard look at Western defense capabilities and strategic planning, particularly as they are embodied in NATO, he has come up with suggestions for radical but vital revisions in our defense policies.
Fifteen years have elapsed since Captain Liddell Hart forecast the consequences of atom-bomb diplomacy. Now, as the NATO powers move uneasily forward in the 1960's, he shows how the development of the H-bomb—and, indeed, the multiplication in general of nuclear weapons on both sides—has become on the one hand, increasingly self-inhibiting, and, on the other, increasingly precarious as a protective insurance policy, especially in view of the development of log-range missiles.
The natural consequences of the current nuclear parity is nuclear nullity. Thus, the nuclear deterrent, in which the West has put so much trust, is fading except as a deterrent to its own kind of action. But the Western powers have not yet come to grips with the problem of finding an adequate and effective replacement for this "fading deterrent." As a result, the West now finds itself gravely hampered in any attempt to resist the more subtle forms of aggression and pressure.
Having carefully analyzed the ailment, the author offers a hopeful cure, demonstrating how the weakness of the West's present position can be remedied without an intolerable outlay in strain and cost.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781789126266
Publisher:	Valmy Publishing
Publication date:	12/05/2018
Sold by:	Bookwire
Format:	eBook
Pages:	207
File size:	572 KB

About the Author

Sir Basil Henry Liddell Hart (1895-1970), commonly known throughout most of his career as Capt. B. H. Liddell Hart, was an English soldier, military historian and military theorist. Following World War II, he was a proponent of the West German rearmament and the moral rehabilitation of the German Wehrmacht. As part of these two interconnected initiatives, Liddell Hart significantly contributed to the creation of the Rommel myth.
Born on October 31, 1895 in Paris, France, the son of an English Methodist minister, Liddell Hart was educated at St. Paul's School in London and at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. On the outbreak of WWI in 1914, he volunteered for the British Army, where he became an officer in the King's Own Yorkshire Light Infantry and served with the regiment on the Western Front and was promoted to rank of captain in 1915. He fought in the Battle of the Somme and, following injury, was transferred to be Adjutant to Volunteer units in Stroud and Cambridge. After the war he transferred to the Royal Army Educational Corps, where he prepared a new edition of the Infantry Training Manual. He retired from the Army in 1927 and spent the rest of his career as a theorist and writer.
In 1924 he became a lawn tennis correspondent and assistant military correspondent for the Morning Post covering Wimbledon and in 1926 publishing a collection of his tennis writings as The Lawn Tennis Masters Unveiled. He worked as the Military Correspondent of the Daily Telegraph from 1925 to 1935, and of The Times from 1935 to 1939.
In the mid to late twenties Liddell Hart wrote a series of histories of major military figures, including Great Captains Unveiled (1927) and Sherman: Soldier, Realist, American (1929), and in 1953 edited The Rommel Papers.
The Queen made Liddell Hart a Knight Bachelor in the New Year Honours of 1966.
He died on January 29, 1970, aged 74.

Born on October 31, 1895 in Paris, France, the son of an English Methodist minister, Liddell Hart was educated at St. Paul’s School in London and at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. On the outbreak of WWI in 1914, he volunteered for the British Army, where he became an officer in the King’s Own Yorkshire Light Infantry and served with the regiment on the Western Front and was promoted to rank of captain in 1915. He fought in the Battle of the Somme and, following injury, was transferred to be Adjutant to Volunteer units in Stroud and Cambridge. After the war he transferred to the Royal Army Educational Corps, where he prepared a new edition of the Infantry Training Manual. He retired from the Army in 1927 and spent the rest of his career as a theorist and writer.
In 1924 he became a lawn tennis correspondent and assistant military correspondent for the Morning Post covering Wimbledon and in 1926 publishing a collection of his tennis writings as The Lawn Tennis Masters Unveiled. He worked as the Military Correspondent of the Daily Telegraph from 1925 to 1935, and of The Times from 1935 to 1939.
In the mid to late twenties Liddell Hart wrote a series of histories of major military figures, including Great Captains Unveiled (1927) and Sherman: Soldier, Realist, American (1929), and in 1953 edited The Rommel Papers.
The Queen made Liddell Hart a Knight Bachelor in the New Year Honours of 1966.
He died on January 29, 1970, aged 74.