The combination of professionalism and technology may also result in narrow-minded specialization more suited to a debating society than to an organization whose task it is to cope with, and indeed live in, the dangerous and uncertain environment of war.

Martin Van Creveld

Categorized in : War Military Technology

War is the greatest fun man can have with his pants on.

Martin Van Creveld

fun men war

A world without war is not in the cards.

Martin Van Creveld

war cards world

We possess several hundred atomic warheads and rockets and can launch them at targets in all directions, perhaps even at Rome. Most European capitals are targets of our air force.

Martin Van Creveld

rome target air

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.

Martin Van Creveld

force israel world

I want to put any number of assorted 'ists' - such as relativists, deconstructionists, destructivists, postmodernists, the more maudlin kind of pacifists and feminists - firmly in their place.

Martin Van Creveld

feminist want numbers

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

intelligent military enemy

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

fighting war mean

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

suicide struggle war

Obviously, we don't want Iran to have nuclear weapons and I don't know if they're developing them, but if they're not developing them, they're crazy.

Martin Van Creveld

nuclear iran crazy

In the future as in the past, both Clausewitz and Sun Tzu will undoubtedly have a lot to offer.

Martin Van Creveld

offers sun past

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

opponents fighting strong

The problem is that you cannot prove yourself against someone who is much weaker than yourself. They are in a lose/lose situation. 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. So here is a dilemma which others have suffered before us, and for which as far as I can see there is simply no escape.

Martin Van Creveld

opponents fighting strong

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

doe two years

The problem is that you cannot prove yourself against someone who is much weaker than yourself.

Martin Van Creveld

proving-yourself prove problem

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

majority war people

Never' is too much of a word. Nothing lasts forever.

Martin Van Creveld

lasts too-much forever

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

military doubt doe

If you are strong, and you are fighting the weak for any period of time, you are going to become weak yourself. If you behave like a coward, then you are going to become cowardly - it's only a question of time.

Martin Van Creveld

yourself you fighting time

The fate of Syria hangs in the balance, but it is entirely possible that the fall of the Assad regime will result in anarchy and cause Syria to turn into a second Afghanistan, a base for anti-Israel terrorism.

Martin Van Creveld

result terrorism balance fall

In Tunisia, the so-called Yasmin revolution has led to the installation of a relatively moderate Islamic government. Whether or not that means democracy will, however, only be put to the test if and when the time comes for another election, which the opposition may win.

Martin Van Creveld

election democracy government time