Soft power unites through shared goals. Hard power coerces with threats.

A wise leader, according to Lao Tzu, is one whose existence the people only know, but whose pressure they do not feel. He makes it so that people say: "We did it ourselves."

Aggression, on the other hand, yields quick results and long-term problems: learned helplessness, loss of trust, and the collapse of an already shaky system.

The power of fear loses to the power of meaning.