The problem is that faced with the hard sell, too many people crack.
The good news, said Dr. Kai Erikson, a sociologist at Yale, is that faced with new and frightening realities, people do adapt.
I believe that faced with the information available to me, the UK Government has been right to support the demands that this issue be confronted and dealt with.
Mr. Saakashvili's associates understood that faced with Russian military superiority, they needed to mount a public-relations campaign to assure Western backing.
We all wish to believe that faced with the impossible choice that confronted the Jews herded into concentration camps, we have would unhesitatingly chosen death over collaboration.
Call me naïve, but I believe that faced with the ugly truth, we will roll up our sleeves, raise ploughshares and stand together to rebuild America.
But it is doubtful that, faced with the same threat, they would have acted differently.
One explanation is that, faced with fighting two wars, the military relaxed its recruitment criteria.
Work done by Daniel Ellsberg in the early sixties suggests that, faced with ambiguity, most people try to minimize possible losses.
And, of course, there is always the possibility that, faced with a long stalemate, internal cohesion in NATO will falter.
