"Weakness of character" related to likeliness of long-term success. Really? Might be a different perspective on things across the pond (assuming you're from the US) ... I remember reading a survey in which a significantly higher number of EU respondents felt that the major developments in their life were not under their direct control compared to US respondents.
I can read that in two ways: Material conditions in the EU have historically tended to reward effort less, vs. EU respondents median strength of character was poorer. I consider the former to be a sufficient explanation, and the latter to be inflammatory.Anyone who has ever faced combat will, regardless of their national origin, immediately recognize that resolution and will are crucial to success in adversarial conditions. One scenario: If your adversary co-opts you successfully, they win. That is the prevailing scenario in the developed world today. I have not spent enough time in under-developed regions to comment on the prevailing scenario in those venues. Generalizing, an excellent way to defeat your enemy is to destroy their will to win. EU respondents seem to have been defeated more thoroughly than US respondents, in that case. But such pendula do reverse their swing from time to time.
Of course, it may be argued that choosing combat exhibits weakness of character (or at least, of intellect) much deeper than the strength of character which enables victory in combat.
Alternatively, both views are post-hoc justifications of processes that are nearly completely unrelated to individual actions anyway, and the circumstances that
produce those different rationalizations are emergent properties, complex enough to be not well understood (probably though: institutions and a bit of geography), which makes post hoc rationalization so damn tempting.