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Jun 2, 2022Liked by Dr Robert Lyman MBE

Fascinating and informative Robert. Will look up the new doctrine but also search out BLH. I suspect my pile of shame will have to wait a little longer now!

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Interested to see Liddell Hart coming back into the discussion. He - 'the captain who teaches generals' - was regarded as the cutting edge of military philosophy before his death by the late '60s. But his British followers in WW2- Auchinleck & Dorman-Smith at army level, and their div & bde commanders 1940-42 - were notoriously unsuccessful in practicing his indirect approach. His examples detailed in 'Strategy of the Indirect Approach' are somewhat selective (understatement alert!!) and while his hero Sherman used significantly different methods to his villain Grant, it's just not possible to claim that Grant had the options open to Sherman. However I do think L-H is an enormously important figure in that he demonstrates just how complex mil hist is, involving cultural and social factors as much as materiel, realistic practical management, and individual genius or competence.

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A very instructive and thought provoking article. Does the defence of Mariupol show this approach isn’t always the most effective though. Ukraine were able to resupply and reinforce their forces throughout the battle up until the last few days. And how would it be applied to another Afghan type war?

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A very instructive post. Thank-you Dr. Lyman. Your phrase "that the purpose of war was to engage and defeat the enemy’s army. It isn’t. The primary task of war is to secure your strategic objective" is very useful and distills war-fighting to an overriding principle. It applies to army, air force or in my case, naval operations.

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