Author: Dave Lyle

By Lieutenant Colonel Dave Lyle, US Air Force

How Wars Start

“To be saved from folly you need either kind friends or fierce enemies.” 

Diogenes of Sinope (aka Diogenes the Cynic)

How War Works

“In the history of the world, there have been persons in leadership positions who have not thought things through as well as they might have. Nor have they always been able to direct matters even skillfully enough to achieve their short sighted objectives. One of the traditional places where the price for that is paid is in the trenches where the common soldier has to crawl in simple self-preservation. Far less often is the price paid in the distant citadels of power, and even then it is normally paid in bloodless coin, limousines taking the henchmen away to minimum-security detentions or to exile in luxury.” 

Algis Budrys, in the introduction to L. Ron Hubbard’s Final Blackout