Tactical Defeat

I suspect carelessness when I hear the phrase "tactical defeat." I gather it can mean one of several things: abandoning a position in hopes your adversary will over-reach (like a chess sacrifice), abandoning a position you can't sustain without major reconfiguration and collecting new resources, or abandoning a position as an olive branch for eventual compromise.

The third isn't much use when your adversary treats the conflict as a war, which is pretty close to the attitude now. And the rules of modern politics are more like Calvin-ball than chess--words and rules change without warning. Don't count on your adversary being stupid.

That leaves the second: the "I shall return" approach. Maybe you will, or maybe the Overton Window shift will make it harder--especially if there's now a bureaucracy which lives from the new policy.

In no case does it sound like any kind of advantage.

It may work out that way. History is full of comebacks. Still, counting on comebacks seems like a poor bet--unless you have inside information. Some of us live in hope of a major come-back-- a eucatastrophe--on better grounds than those who trust in politics and war can boast.