Sympathetic local management that grasps how these pieces fit together is a major help here too.
He grasps your hand firmly, looking up from his wheelchair straight into your eyes, all the time smiling, all the time pumping your hand, up and down, up and down, and you are surprised to realise that he is not as frail as his white hairs and his wrinkles would imply.
For, as Merkel smartly grasps, German politics has changed.
Their ostensible grasps at scientific credibility crumble upon even a cursory inspection, and their odious arguments, bereft of facts, should not be allowed set the tone of the conversation.
Many detainees have reported being beaten by interrogators, and the CIA memo mentions a number of approved methods of physical contact, including "facial holds", "insult slaps" and "attention grasps".
Whoever grasps the poisoned chalice of Chechen power will need the support of Mr Kadyrov and his militia, as well as that of the Kremlin.
"The whole problem of regulating alternative medicine will remain impossibly chaotic until the government grasps the nettle of deciding what works and what doesn't," he says.
Leaders are right to feel in their gut what the West grasps only superficially, that the crisis has hastened the "rise of the rest".But leaders are wrong when they conclude that success is based on some enlightened Asian political way.
It is a piece temporarily titled "Arhat", a Buddhist term for one who grasps the true nature of existence.
IT IS hard to know which is worse: an administration that cannot understand that something is wrong, or one that grasps the problem but thinks it can fiddle its way through.
A knowledgeable and fluent writer on urban affairs, Mr Flint grasps that architecture depends not just on architects but also on clients, planners, contractors and engineers.
