Martin Van Creveld Quotes & Sayings

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

It is of course true that many modern combat sports are extremely demanding in terms of physical force, skill, and endurance. Indeed many athletes are much fitter and better trained than the vast majority of soldiers. However, all those various kinds of sport are based on artificial rules as to what is and is not permitted. Furthermore, and with the exception of fencing, a highly ritualized form of combat to which we shall return, even the most violent ones do not permit the players to use weapons. In their absence, most of those skills are too specialized to be of much military relevance. — Martin Van Creveld

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

Though hand-to-hand combat has become rare, much modern warfare continues to involve physical strain such as those who have not engaged in it can scarcely imagine. — Martin Van Creveld

four men who do not know each other will hesitate to confront a lion. But once they know each other and feel they can trust each other they will do so without fear. — Martin Van Creveld

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

One of them, the philosopher Philostratus, summed up the idea by saying that the great athletes of the past "made war training for sport, and sport training for war." Turning Spartan logic on its head, Plutarch even claimed that the Thebans at the great Battle of Leuctra in 371 BC defeated the Spartans because they had done more training at the palaestra; he also wrote that sport, wrestling specifically included, was an imitation and exercise of war. — Martin Van Creveld

The problem is that you cannot prove yourself against someone who is much weaker than yourself. — Martin Van Creveld

Few today believe that engaging in wrestling, boxing, or even much more violent combat sports such as Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) will help prepare either them as individuals or their nations for eventual armed conflict. — Martin Van Creveld

War is the greatest fun man can have with his pants on. — Martin Van Creveld

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

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

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

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

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

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

A world without war is not in the cards. — Martin Van Creveld

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

Since 2006, when the Second Lebanon War killed perhaps 2,000 Lebanese, many of them civilians, and led to the destruction of an entire section of Beirut, the northern border has been absolutely quiet. — Martin Van Creveld

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

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

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

Thus knowing oneself is no less, and may be more, of a requirement than understanding the enemy. — Martin Van Creveld

'Never' is too much of a word. Nothing lasts forever. — Martin Van Creveld

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

Though Moltke was working with subordinates who were totally lacking in comprehension for whatever strategic plans he may have entertained and who on occasion abused the independence granted them, those plans were sufficiently flexible to accommodate errors; that is, a large safety margin was left to ensure that mistakes would not develop into catastrophes. — Martin Van Creveld

Thirst, hunger, heat, cold, discomfort, exhaustion, sleep deprivation, fear, and often pain and suffering as well all remain exactly what they have been since time immemorial. Any commander worth his salt will make sure his troops will get habituated to them, as far as possible, before he leads them on campaign. However, to speak with Epaminondas, the place to achieve this is the field and not the gym or the playing court. The members of football teams do not enter the field hungry; should they suffer a serious injury, they expect to be evacuated and taken care of immediately. — Martin Van Creveld

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

The defense of the West Bank by Arab forces would be a truly suicidal enterprise. The late King Hussein understood these facts well. Until 1967, he was careful to keep most of his forces east of the Jordan River. When he momentarily forgot these realities in 1967, it took Israel just three days of fighting to remind him of them. — Martin Van Creveld

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