The reply is procrastination and preconditions.
His latest clarification was that there is a difference between "preparations" and "preconditions" for negotiations with bad guys.
"I think we have paid enough with good-will gestures and preconditions, and we have only been spat on," he said.
By setting out a clear objective, with staging posts and preconditions, European governments were able to convince markets that they meant business in doing away with their national currencies.
But after a 120-year battle, Chile is on the threshold of approving a law to change that, even though the result may carry so many qualifications and preconditions that the process of ending a marriage could become even more complex.
The moral judgments and causal statements in historical writing are also criticized as vague, but they may be precise enough for ambiguous situations, where moral responsibility may be distributed among a number of agents or the precise relationship between causes and preconditions is tangled.
The paper presents the necessities and preconditions for an integrated energy planning process in Germany.
But calling them vices makes sense, given that they are ways of acting on maxims that are contrary to the ends and preconditions of virtue.
