p.42 The pressing challenge is for us to anticipate the future as best as
we are able in ways that reduce, hopefully minimize, the risk of our committing errors in prediction that are likely to have
catastrophic consequences. The necessary skill is to pursue a strategy of minimum regret.
p.43 All warfare is a race between belligerents to correct the consequences of the mistaken beliefs with
which they entered combat.
p.201 War is about control, as Rear Admiral J.C. Wylie
explained with exceptional clarity... In the Admiral's words: 'the aim of war is some measure of control over
the enemy'.
p.204 Colonel John Boyd, USAF, fighter pilot turned guru, applied his tactical knowledge of air combat to
warfare at all levels by means of his simple formula of the 'OODA loop'.... The OODA loop is a formula for decisive
success in a manoeuvrist style of warfare.
p.363-364 war is controlled by strategy... strategy is hard to do well... Strategy is about threatening
or applying force purposefully for the ends set by policy... strategy is the vital controller of military
behaviour. It should determine how much force to employ, as well as how to employ it... Strategy should always control
the course of warfare
p.370 The future, of warfare or anything else, cannot be referenced directly. It has not happened.
p.371 maritime historian Geoffrey Till... advises that 'the chief utility of history for the analysis
of present and future lies in its ability, not to point out lessons, but to isolate things that need thinking about...
History provides insights and questions, not answers'... the future remains to be made, to be constructed by people, including
by people in conflict who will strive to make a future that they prefer.
