Bernard Brodie: Quotes about war

Bernard Brodie was American nuclear strategist. Explore interesting quotes on war.

Bernard Brodie: 20 quotes0 likes

“In wars throughout history, events have generally proved the pre-hostilities calculations of both sides, victor as well as loser, to have been seriously wrong.”

As quoted in "Military air power : the CADRE digest of air power opinions and thoughts", compiled by Charles M. Westenhoff

“Soldiers usually are close students of tactics, but rarely are they students of strategy and practically never of war.”

As quoted in "Military air power : the CADRE digest of air power opinions and thoughts", compiled by Charles M. Westenhoff

“Yet the only empirical data we have about how people conduct war and behave under its stresses is our experience with it in the past, however much we have to make adjustments for subsequent changes in conditions.”

1976

“It seems to me that the technique of gaming does at least two things, both of which are extremely important. One is that it tends to make a reality out of the potential and also the intentions nominally ascribed to the enemy. I have had the privilege of studying over the years a number of so-called "strategic studies," and I have often been amazed at the degree to which they are permeated by what one can only call "wishful thinking." There will often be on the first page a list of stated assumptions or postulates which will say something like the following: "(1) The enemy is very intelligent; (2) He has the initiative." When you turn the pages, however, the enemy has ceased to be intelligent, and he has also ceased to have initiative. War gaming does not let you get away with that.”

Strategy as an Art and a Science http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/theorists/brodie1.htm,1959

“Instances of grave tactical blunders are certainly not lacking in the history of war, but it is characteristic of tactical errors that tend to be self-exposing, if not in relation to some theoretical ideal then at least in relation to the best the enemy can do. In the past, it has usually been possible for strong nations to recover from them, even if at a heavy cost in blood and possibly strategic position. Strategic errors may or may not expose themselves in some obvious fashion during the course of a war, or even afterwards, and they are therefore much less likely to damage the reputations of those responsible for them.”

Pg. 17
Strategy in the Missile Age

“Necessity, which frequently exists only in the mind, is less often the mother of invention than of obstinacy, and the obstinacy of those three years exacted from France a penalty which continued to exert its effects over the years, especially in World War II, and which cannot be fully summed up even now.”

Pg. 18
Strategy in the Missile Age