Yet when the defender has sufficient reserve capacity, even multiple attackers may decide to desist from an attack.
Officials have been quietly warning the authors of the Internet letters, as well as journals under the control of hardliners, to desist from their attacks.
He will also try to build bridges with moderates who are resisting calls to make plebiscites the vehicle for determining preselections by warning people pushing the pro-reform case to pursue their arguments respectfully and desist from personal attacks against various individuals.
"There would be no need for Israel's defensive actions if Hamas would cease and desist from committing terrorist attacks on Israelis," Baker said, in reference to Israeli air strikes and commando raids in Gaza.
The main overall aim, apart from sending a message to Assad to desist from chemical weapons attacks, was to keep as far away as possible from Russian and Iranian positions, to avoid widening the conflict by directly drawing in Russia or Iran.
What incentives would you be prepared to offer Israel to desist from a pre-emptive attack?
The basic agreement, in any event, is that Hamas must stop firing rockets; it will presumably stanch the flow of smuggled arms into Gaza, while Israel would stop its incursions and aerial attacks, desist from assassinating Hamas bigwigs, and loosen its stranglehold on Gaza, with its harsh restrictions on the movement of people and goods, often labelled as a cruel siege.
Ministers, officials and army officers have been enjoined to desist from any public expression of encouragement or indeed desire for an American attack on Iraq.
Even as Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert lay down the weapons of satire, even as they cease and desist from slashing away at the monstrous inanities of American politics, Arab TV producers have begun to attack ISIS with something its militants fear even more than airstrikes: ridicule.
Therefore I desist from writing.
