Martin Van Creveld Quotes

"As history since Hiroshima shows, the best, perhaps the only, way to curb war is to deter it with such overwhelming force as to turn it from a struggle into suicide."
- Martin van Creveld
(Related: History, War, Force, Struggle, Suicide)

"Assuming China does not become destabilized and continues to grow, it will no doubt develop a military program in proportion to its resources."
- Martin van Creveld
(Related: Doubt, Military, Will)

"Except when war is waged in a desert, noncombatants, also known as civilians or "the people," constitute the great majority of those affected."
- Martin Van Creveld
(Related: War, People, Majority)

"If you are strong and fighting the weak, then if you kill your opponent then you are a scoundrel... if you let him kill you, then you are an idiot."
- Martin van Creveld
(Related: Fighting)

"In the future as in the past, both Clausewitz and Sun Tzu will undoubtedly have a lot to offer."
- Martin van Creveld
(Related: Future, Past, Sun, Will)

"It is simply not true that war is solely a means to an end, nor do people necessarily fight in order to obtain this objective or that. In fact, the opposite is true: people very often take up one objective or another precisely in order that they may fight."
- Martin Van Creveld
(Related: War, People, End, Fact, Fight, May, Order)

"Sun Tzu does not need my praise. His work has lived for over two thousand years, and will surely live for another two thousand without any help from me."
- Martin van Creveld
(Related: Work, Help, Praise, Sun, Will, Years)

"The enemy resembles us. Therefore, he needs to be approached not as an assembly of 'targets' to be destroyed one by one; but as a living, intelligent entity capable of acting and reacting."
- Martin Van Creveld
(Related: Acting, Enemy, Living, Needs)