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by Mickydtron 3593 days ago
I actually am struggling to see the real relevance of the military examples there at the end. It seems to be there to show that stubbornness and/or courage results in winning (to rather grossly simplify). But it should be obvious that neither stubbornness or courage are enough for military victory, and it's not too hard to find examples where the opposite was what brought victory. In fact, we don't even need to leave the Punic wars. Hannibal's winning move at Cannae was in fact to have the center of his battle formation not be stubborn, and fall back, drawing the Romans into an encircling trap. Fabian's strategy was seen as cowardly, but as squozzer notes, Hannibal didn't destroy Rome, while Rome did eventually destroy Carthage.