Introduction to Strategy

by André Beaufre, B.H. Liddell Hart (Foreword)

In a book of searing brilliance, General Andre Beaufre contends that the West has failed to develop a strategic method of thought in politics, economics, and diplomacy to employ in the dialectic of two opposing wills on the world scene. We have assumed, wrongly, that military strategy is the only strategy (and military strength the most important strength) and because military strategy has often failed, we have relegated the whole strategic art to the museum shelf. General Beaufre constructs a modern "algebra of war" that incorporates classic military strategy as well as nuclear and indirect strategies - examining them as abstract concepts of attack, surprise, deception, and showing how and when they can be used most effectively in achieving specific aims in global conflict. In our time, when the awesomeness of nuclear weapons, imposes limits on the use of military strength, it is the other aspects of strategy that must come to the fore. Indirect strategy is the strategy of the future. "I am convinced that in strategy, as in all human affairs, it is ideas which must be dominant and the guiding force. In war the loser deserves to lose because his defeat must result from errors of thinking, made either before or during the conflict." It is therefore no exaggeration to call An Introduction to Strategy a challenge to the philopher and the social scientist as well as to the military analyst and the government planner. The author has for forty years defended his country and its values, and he has been deeply concerned with the implications of world conflict. His book is not a military call to arms. It is, rather, a call to every one of us to marshal ideas and ideals into a new, dynamic, positive approach in furthuring our dream of a peaceful utopia.

138 pages, Hardcover

Published January 1, 1966