The perceptions created to convey the illusions of strength and invulnerability became a substitute reality to which all others defaulted.
The intent was to create the illusion of troop strength or to make it seem as if an offensive would be launched in one place, when the true attack point was different.
Not all of their listed armament was always carried, but to give the illusion of greater strength, fake gunports were often painted on the hulls, in the hope of distant observers mistaking them for 64-gun ships of the Royal Navy.
As in the U.S., public-sector unionism is strong in Europe, Canada and Japan, and the illusion of continued union strength abroad reflects mainly the fact that their public sectors are relatively larger than ours.
Embedded in our language are ideas which implicitly suggest that part of 'manning up' (or, if you like, not 'acting like a girl') involves keeping a stiff upper lip, maintaining the illusion of dominance and strength, and taking life's setbacks on the chin – until the bitter end if needs be.
But Sony, like so many other successful organizations, has become victim to their own illusions of their strengths, thinking they could grow only laterally.
They wanted the inevitable withdrawal from the territories to be carried out with caution, moderation, and a sense of strength — without euphoria or illusions.
"If you start doing them on a regular basis, you destroy all sense of plausibility, and the strength of that show is the illusion of plausibility and the illusion of everyday life.
Individually, these are defining strengths, but taken together they've created the illusion of a unified strategy where none exists.
