History Main / VictorybyEndurance

* In ''[[https://archiveofourown.org/works/25927015/chapters/63016108 Crimson and Noire]]'', [[spoiler:Master Fu and Marianne's original plan against the Butterfly villain Monarch was to invoke this trope. The Butterfly Miraculous was damaged years before the story, so they selected Crimson Bug and Lady Noir to fight off the Akumas until the Monarch suffered enough damage that she could no longer use it. However, in the six months since her debut, she had sent twice as many Akumas compared to previous users who died after one or two years, and she shows no signs of slowing down. And with their aging bodies, Fu and Marianne have no choice but to prepare to [[PassingTheTorch pass the mantle of Guardians]] to the teen heroes in the hope they will find and defeat Monarch]].

** Yhwach tricked Yamamoto into taking on a Yhwach double. After Yamamoto wore himself down killing the double, Yhwach himself stepped in and killed him.
** The [=FemRitters=] deliberately waited until Kenpachi had exhausted and injured himself from defeating Gremmy Thoumeaux before attacking him, commenting that this was the [[CombatPragmatist smart thing to do]]. As a result, they beat him up so badly he can't move.

!!Example with their own subpages:

** Similarly, this was how the Buffalo Bills pulled off the greatest comeback in NFL history (Trailed 35-3, and won 41-38) against the Houston Oilers in the 1992 playoffs. Though one could argue this was more exploiting Houston's AchillesHeel. Houston's famed Run N Shoot Offense was highly potent and could light up the scoreboard like no one else, but it had a crippling weakness: [[CripplingOverspecialization It was all the Oilers could do effectively]. Houston could not slow the pace of the game down or run the football effectively to grind down clock, and in turn leaving their defense on the field for very long stretches leaving them gassed. By the time Buffalo started generating momentum, Houston couldn't get back in gear and they fell apart.

* This is the entire strategy of "Smashmouth" football, often detracted as "Three-Yards-And-A-Cloud-Of-Dust" football. The idea is to have an offense that didn't score quickly, but rather possessed the ball for a long time, and gas the Opposing Defense out. This was done with a powerful running game that got 3-4 yards a carry, and a conservative game managing Quarterback who could complete the short passes on 3rd down on a short or manageable distance. While the Defense would smother the opposing Offense and get the ball back. The Offense would get more and more momentum that would build and eventually the Defense would break down from exhaustion. Late NFL Head Coach Marty Schottenheimer utilized this strategy for his teams was so successful at it that it was dubbed "Martyball", and his coaching disciple Bill Cowher used it to similar success during his tenure with the Pittsburgh Steelers. But it came [[AchillesHeel with a caveat]]: the strategy consistently [[EveryYearTheyFizzleOut failed]] in the postseason because the offense couldn't make big plays or score enough to overcome the opponent, resulting in lots of close losses.

* In the ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' episode "Peak Performance", Data loses a strategy game to master strategist Kolrami. Near the end of the episode, Data challenges Kolrami to a rematch only this time he deliberately plays to draw instead of win until Kolrami pulls a RageQuit.

* "[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rope-a-dope Rope-a-dope]]" is this strategy as applied to the sport of Boxing. The technique was first used and named by boxer UsefulNotes/MuhammadAli for his 1974 fight against George Foreman (the "Rumble in the Jungle" match in [[UsefulNotes/DemocraticRepublicOfTheCongo Kinshasa]]). Foreman was stronger and closer to his peak than Ali, who was out of practice after an involuntary three-year hiatus in his career. Knowing that he couldn't match Foreman punch for punch, Ali focused on protecting himself and hanging on the ropes, reducing the effectiveness of Foreman's damaging punches, for round after round after round. By the seventh round, Foreman was exhausted because he'd literally been doing nothing but attacking for seven rounds, while Ali, who'd been doing little but defending, was relatively fresh (he ''was'' injured -- you can't get punched and avoid all consequences, even with a good defense, but he was in much better shape than Foreman). Ali came out in the eighth swinging hard, and Foreman couldn't defend himself, much less fight back. The match was over soon after. Since then, various fighters have used this technique from time to time, particularly against HotBlooded opponents who can't see that it's an act.

* ''VideoGame/TeamFortress2'': In the story comic ''[[https://www.teamfortress.com/loosecanon/index.html Loose Canon]]'', this strategy was attempted by the leaders of ''both'' sides of the RED vs. BLU conflict. In 1850, Zepheniah Mann died and left equal parts of the land he owned in North America to his squabbling twin sons, Blutarch and Redmond. Blutarch hired a team of elite mercenaries to take Redmond's share by force, but Redmond had the same idea, and what Blutarch had expected to be a ten-minute land grab turned into an intractable stalemate instead. Blutarch decided that if force wouldn't work, he would simply ''outlive'' his brother and claim the land when Redmond died of natural causes. But in 1890, with his brother still alive after forty years and needing a way to prevent his ''own'' death, he hired engineer Radigan Conagher to build him a machine that would extend his life indefinitely. However, a mysterious woman approached Radigan and bribed him to secretly build one for Redmond as well, resulting in the stalemate dragging into the 1960s. Finally in 1968, the brothers hire new mercenaries and start the so-called Gravel War which is the initial setting of the game proper.

* During ''the Resurrection of Ra's Al Ghul'', Batman fights the Sensei, who has centuries of fighting experience and martial arts training. At the start of the fight, the Sensei dominates the battle and horribly injures Batman while commenting, "I am very old, it's true. I am an evil old man, and my stamina is not what it was. I can only keep this up for less than two minutes. Fortunately, I need only one to break you." As they fight, Batman just keeps attacking despite not even touching the Sensei. However as the fight progresses, the Sensei is visibly beginning to sweat and fatigue. Batman realizes that despite his [[AgeWithoutYouth centuries of life, the Sensei is physically still an old man]] and as long as he can protect himself from anything lethal, he can outlast the Sensei. At the end of the fight, the Sensei, breathing heavily and clearly exhausted, can only defend himself from a horribly beaten and injured Batman. With a desperate scream he yells to Batman, "What are you doing?" Batman's response? [[IronicEcho "Lasting longer]] [[SugarWiki/MomentOfAwesome than a minute."]]

* ''Anime/CowboyBebop'': Vicious makes use of this tactic both times he battles Spike. He sends a wave of {{Mooks}} out first, and by the time he's gone through them all Spike has taken at least one gunshot wound.

** A particularly notable example is when Naruto defeats [[spoiler: Pain]]. Ironically, said opponent was using the ''same tactic at the same time'' [[spoiler:because both of them are members of the Uzumaki bloodline, and thus have insane amounts of chakra reserves.]] Naruto was not only able to avoid becoming exhausted (thanks to replenishment through outside sources) but also able to force [[spoiler:Pain]] to let his guard down when he finally did exhaust Naruto's last trump card, thus leading straight to his defeat.
** However, Naruto usually expends that extra energy to do ''more'' rather than win his own fight. For example, in the [[spoiler: Fourth Shinobi War]] Arc, Naruto's new SuperMode is quite powerful and can be used for extended periods of time. Instead of conserving his energy for his upcoming fight, he creates a dozen clones to [[spoiler: personally turn the tide at every front of the war.]] This has notable consequences later, but his decision definitely did have its merits.

* ''Manga/RurouniKenshin'': Sanosuke notes this trope in his first fight with Kenshin, stating that it's not the better swordsman who wins, but the one who is left standing (which Kenshin throws back in his face). [[spoiler: This tactic is also used by during the fight with Shishio, which ends with Shishio [[ManOnFire combusting.]]]]

* This is largely how Rafael Nadal has won ''ten'' French Open championships, while winning "only" six other Major championships combined. The clay courts of the French Open take more speed of the ball when it bounces on them, compared to the grass courts of Wimbledon or the hard courts in the US and Australian opens. This makes it relatively harder to blast a winner by your opponent. Nadal, who is in great shape even compared to other top level pro tennis players, can thus run down balls for hours on end, and his opponents struggle to keep up. With a full five set match potentially pushing ''five hours'' in time, Nadal can win by attrition.

!!Examples:

* In mixed martial arts endurance is often a deciding factor. Some fighters are so [[LightningBruiser fast and strong]] that the fight seems like a foregone conclusion after the first thirty seconds. However, if the opponent is able to dodge or absorb attacks for a round or so then their muscular opponent will likely be so exhausted that they will leave themselves vulnerable. Still, it is a risky tactic as all fights have time limits and if they go to a decision then the judges (and fans!) are more likely to favor the more aggressive combatant.
* While its place as a "sport" is up for contention despite [[InsistentTerminology now being referred to as Sports Entertainment]], ProfessionalWrestling is well known for this sort of victory. Aside from the usual bouts of Determinator and NighInvulnerable wrestlers, many matches are based on this concept, like: the "Iron Man" hour-long marathon to see who has the most pinfalls/submissions; "Last Man Standing" matches where you have to keep the opponent down for a 10 count; cage matches where you have to get your opponent so worn down they can't stop you from exiting the cage; and any number of other gimmick matches where the expectation is "beat the guy down so much he can't fight back, and you can put him into/out of the victory condition, or he can't prevent you from doing so." Or, at least, they are HYPED as this, until one or the other figures out [[TakeAThirdOption an alternate means of grabbing victory]].

[[folder:Real Life]]
* The "endurance hunt", thought by anthropologists to be the hunting method that put humanity at the top of the food chain. It is a method of hunting by tracking and chasing a single target for as long as it takes for it to get tired. While most animals can easily outpace humanity in short bursts, no other species has our potential for endurance (basically, you follow your prey at a brisk walk until it drops from heat exhaustion). As long as the human is [[ImplacableMan persistent enough]], eventually the animal will be too tired to run or fight and collapse. Then it's pretty much over. However, human endurance hunting is limited to warm or hot climates -- humans' relative stamina relies on ability to sweat with access to water while their hunted prey will overheat, so that method doesn't work in temperate or cold climates.
** Even in temperate and cold climates, {{One Hit Kill}}s with arrow or spear weren't guaranteed even for skilled hunters, so wounded prey often had to be tracked overland. Bloodloss and panic would wear the prey's endurance down while the hunter followed.
* Another real life example is wolves, which are as adapted to cold weather endurance as humans are to warm. When the two species started working together (with wolves becoming dogs), everything made of meat was basically screwed.
* Komodo dragons. The Komodo has a very nasty venomous bite that causes, among other things, inhibition of blood clotting, lowered blood pressure, hypothermia (as a result of the previous two), and paralysis. It will chase and bite its prey again and again relentlessly, using its superior stamina compared to other lizards as a weapon, until the prey falls dead from shock.
* Anglosphere popular culture would consider this "the Russia Gambit", as this is how people in English-speaking countries believe Russia won the UsefulNotes/TheNapoleonicWars and UsefulNotes/WorldWarII, supposedly by Russia constantly retreating into colder and colder territory while [[WeHaveReserves using their near-limitless numbers]] to slowly wear the invaders down. The reality is that while weather and climate are significant factors in warfare within Russia, they are only problematic when you fail to respect them. Moreover while it is true that powerful combatants like France and Russia have fielded, destroyed, and lost forces on a vastly larger scale to countries like the USA and Britain, the actual resources of such countries are hardly infinite. In addition, that aforementioned tactic of retreating into colder environments doesn’t work when your opponent [[UsefulNotes/FinnsWithFearsomeForests is Finland]], which proofed more than capable enough to humiliate Russia time and time again with their own resilience against the cold.
** The Napoleonic Wars were actually a subversion in many ways, as the Russian Army in 1812 was heavily outnumbered by the French and their allies, and the Grande Armée sustained the majority of its losses (through exhaustion, dysentery and typhoid fever) in the summer and early autumn, on the way to Moscow. But the war still lasted well over a year after the French re-crossed the Russian border, and in the spring of 1813, despite one major ally (Austria) declaring itself neutral and another (Prussia) joining the Russian side with a much-expanded army, Napoleon succeeded in assembling an army in Germany well superior in numbers to the Russo-Prussian forces. It was only after Austria joined the anti-Napoleonic alliance that Napoleon's forces became numerically inferior.
** The Eastern Theatre of UsefulNotes/WorldWarII was won by endurance, but this had nothing to do with "weather" or "limitless numbers". Soviet resources were perilously finite, and carefully husbanding what was left after the first Winter Counter-Offensive was the key to victory.
* The Vietnam War also counts, with North Vietnamese leader Ho Chi Minh famously declaring "if the Americans want to make war for twenty years then we shall make war for twenty years. If they want to make peace, we shall make peace and invite them to afternoon tea." In the end, the Americans underestimated the North's will to fight for years against a technologically superior foe while also taking horrendous losses. In other words, the U.S. military could go home after the war whether they won or lost, while the North Vietnamese's only option was to win the fight because they had nowhere else to go.
** In fact, this is one of the two most often employed strategies by the Vietnamese (the other being guerrilla warfare). The longest war in their history lasted for 1000 years (''Nghìn năm Bắc Thuộc'' or 1000 Years of Northern Oppression). Entirely justified since their opponents almost always have superior resources.
* [[UsefulNotes/SecondSinoJapaneseWar China.]] Jiang Jieshi gambled on the Japanese suing for peace rather than prosecuting a protracted war, which he believed that his Chinese government could well withstand -- if not quite ''win'', as such -- and figured that when faced with the prospect of a full-out war the Imperials would accept a face-saving settlement [[note]]protracted warfare is ''expensive'', and both sides had much better things to be doing with their time. Like stamping out socialism.[[/note]] Unfortunately, the Japanese expected that the prospect of protracted warfare would cause ''Jiang'' to fold and come to the negotiating table first, also [[FailureIsTheOnlyOption failing to understand that the ''Nationalist'' Party couldn't be seen to cave in to Foreign Imperialism in an unequal settlement of the kind that the Japanese wanted from the conflict, because doing so would be tantamount to political suicide.]] So both sides escalated the war. They were still dogging it out when the USA used Japan's occupation of Indochina as a pretext for embargoing Japan in an attempt to get them to negotiate an end to the war. Because the ruling clique back home couldn't be seen to back down to 'American Imperialism', Japan entered the wider war with an all-out naval-based invasion and occupation of south-east Asia. Allocated secondary importance in the Pacific War -- the USA decided that it would use its own forces to 'island hop' its way over to Japan, instead of deploying US forces in China and/or equipping Jiang's forces such that they could go on the offensive themselves, both of which would require ridiclously complex supply lines -- the Guomindang was basically made to sit out the rest of the war and given just enough lend-lease material not to become a liability to the Allied cause. In the end, the Guomindang survived the war -0 but once the supply of American money was cut off at the war's end, their regime imploded. They'd been on the edge of doing so in 1942, and American money had staved it off for a while, but they hadn't been given enough to actually ''fix'' their problems -- just enough to put them off for another day. In 1946, that day came ''hard''.
** In fact this was quite basically the entire Allies' ''modus operandi'' for the entire war: with 60% of the world's industry and 80% of its manpower, the Allies never ''really'' had to worry about losing once it became clear that the Soviet Union wasn't going to sue for peace in 1941-42 -- not that Hitler would've accepted their proposals, of course. Nor could even Stalin have survived consigning 40 million of his people to death and another 120 million to slavery by a ''foreign'' dictator -- if the Soviet leadership hadn't lynched him for trying it, the proletariat would've done it themselves.
** The RAF, US Army Air Force, and US Navy Air Force firebombing and anti-barge campaign against Germany, Occupied Europe, and Japan eventually began to have a noticeable effect upon Axis military production by early 1945. Until then, it had cost the lives of fifty thousand airmen and hundreds of thousands of civilians to get to that point, and still wasn't anywhere near worthwhile from a pure cost/benefit perspective.
** [[UsefulNotes/KatanasOfTheRisingSun Japan's initial strategy]] in WWII was a fast war, defeating the US Navy in a [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kantai_Kessen decisive sea battle]] and suing for an advantageous peace before the American industrial capacities put that goal out of reach[[note]]the loss of four fleet carriers at Midway six months after Pearl Harbor was the beginning of their downward spiral, and things became ''much'' worse once the US began churning out warships and planes at a rate that the Japanese could never afford[[/note]]. Later, when they were losing, that changed to giving the US losses so horrendous that the latter would sue for a peace where they at least could have a somewhat upper hand. Unfortunately, Japan's determination to make traditional boots-on-the-ground battles so bloody convinced the Americans to concentrate on aerial bombings of Japanese cities, culminating in the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
* In a RealLife knife fight between two skilled opponents, if you can't get an easy kill, the idea is to nick the other guy and let him "bleed out". Which doesn't mean he bleeds to death, it means the blood loss tires him out and leaves him vulnerable to a killing stab.
** It's also worth noting that this tactic not only ''can'' easily be applied to combat of just about any form, but often is the deciding factor. The more a fighter exerts themselves during an offensive, the quicker they will tire. Violence is one of the most physically draining activities that human beings can engage in, and if a victory isn't achieved within the first minute, it's extremely likely that the fight will end in favour of whoever has greater endurance.
* In one Grand Prix race in the 1930s, William Grover Williams, racing for French automaker Bugatti, was up against a German team whose cars were more powerful. Williams realized that he couldn't catch the German leader in a flat-out race, but that the German's more powerful engine would drink fuel faster than the lighter Bugatti, so he eased off and waited for the German to put in for more fuel. During the time it took for the German to refuel, Williams overtook his pole position and secured his spot at the head of the pack, winning the race.
** This is still a viable way to win a race, much to the dismay of some NASCAR fans. (Although 'who runs out of fuel first?' drama is something in and of itself when you have multiple teams trying it at once... )
* Roman formations were used to capitalize on this.
** That, and the front ranks could be easily allowed to retreat to the rear for a break while fresher troops stepped up (also, the knowledge that if they can survive the first 2 minutes of a battle, they would be rotated out to safety, goes a long way to encourage the front rankers to fight harder).
** Speaking of the Romans, their victory in the First and Second Punic War fits the description, as they soaked up tremendous losses (in the First Punic War, Rome lost two entire fleets crewed by about 100,000 men each to storms) and crushing defeats (e.g. against Hannibal in the Second Punic War) but kept on fighting for years until they eventually won. Moreover, Rome could replace their losses at a quick pace and had a steady flow of resources, whilst Hannibal had a finite amount of troops and no means of replacing any of his losses.
*** This is either ''the'' or ''one of'' the first times this tactic was used as a military doctrine: They later named it the Fabian strategy after the guy who came up with it, Dictator Quintus Fabius Maximus Verrucosus. Despite essentially keeping the Roman military from being destroyed, he still faced massive popularity losses since he refused to directly engage Hannibal while his troops pillaged Italy.
*** The Romans were also willing to work together and gear everything towards the war effort, whilst Hannibal was often undermined by in-fighting at home.
* In a number of cases a war of attrition has been the way to prevail against an alliance, in effect by continuing to fight until the differences among the powers fighting you become so great that the alliance fractures, or you even succeed in wooing one of the allied powers away from the others.
** In UsefulNotes/TheHundredYearsWar, Henry V of England was allied to the Burgundians, which put him into a seemingly unassailable position to rule France, yet the Dauphin (later Charles VII) fought on and in the end succeeded in coming to an accomodation with Burgundy, which enabled his forces to drive out the now outnumbered English during the reign of Henry VI.
** France came out of the War of Spanish Succession in much better shape than expected because the war continued until the Habsburg claimant to the Spanish throne died, leaving the German emperor as next in line and thus creating the possibility of one Habsburg ruler of both the UsefulNotes/HolyRomanEmpire and Spain. This led to the British concluding a separate peace and the French winning the final battle of Dinant against the Austrians and Dutch.
** The UsefulNotes/SevenYearsWar from the Prussian side became a war of attrition after the Prussians began to suffer serious defeats starting in 1757 at Kolin. Frederick the Great continued the fight until some of the powers fighting him dropped out of the alliance (first Russia, then Sweden) and Maria Theresia's other allies lost their determination to reduce Prussia to a marquisat of Brandenburg. But it was a close-run thing, and Frederick would have failed without British subsidies.
** Similarly, the first French Republic profited from Prussia and Spain leaving the anti-Revolutionary alliance in early 1795 and concluding separate peace treaties in Basel.
** This was the Austrian strategy in the 1848 campaign of the [[UsefulNotes/WarsOfItalianIndependence First War of Italian Independence]], against an alliance of all the Italian states except UsefulNotes/SanMarino and the Duchy of Lucca (the two smallest ones): while normally Austria could have ''crushed'' all the Italian states at once, the UsefulNotes/RevolutionsOf1848 had deprived them of their forward base in Milan and the naval base in Venice ''and'' caused assorted troubles that kept most of their forces outside Italy and even threatened the very existence of Austria, so ''feldmarshall'' Joseph Radetzky opted for a fighting retreat toward the Quadrilateral Fortresses (a system of four fortified cities that operated as rearguard bases and fortified line), knowing that while the Kingdom of Sardinia and many volunteers believed in the cause, everyone else was in only for the Revolutions of 1848 and didn't trust the king of Sardinia, Carlo Alberto, at all. As expected, the alliance collapsed when the Pope ordered the retreat of his troops, precipitating the retreat of the other large states, and while the Sardinians and the volunteers were able to breach the Quadrilateral with the conquest of Peschiera, it exhausted their forces, allowing Radetzky (who in the meantime had received some reinforcements) to defeat the Sardinians and launch a counteroffensive.
** In UsefulNotes/WorldWarII, this was the ultimate motivation for Hitler launching the Battle of the Bulge; he hoped that he could either inflict such disproportionate losses on the American side that they'd quit on Great Britain, accusing the later of using them for CannonFodder, or failing that, delay the Western Allies advance long enough for tensions between them and Stalin's USSR (which he saw as a fundamental unnatural alliance) to boil over and allow him to make a separate peace. Unfortunately, everyone involved hated the Nazis so much that they were willing to see the war through to the end, after which the alliance ''did'' collapse into the UsefulNotes/ColdWar.
** This had also been the Nazi strategy against Britain prior to American entry into the war. Britain was not self-sufficient, and as an island nation, the only way to import the necessary supplies was by sea. Thus, Germany sent out hundreds of U-boats (eventually over a thousand of the submarines) and a handful of surface ships to act as commerce raiders, with the goal of sinking as many British merchant ships as possible. The thinking was that if British merchant ships could be sunk faster than replacements could be built, eventually Britain would run out of ships entirely and be forced to surrender, while Germany (which could bring in fuel and raw materials by land rather than by sea) could outlast them.
* This was Italy's initial strategy in UsefulNotes/WorldWarI: the Italian commander-in-chief Luigi Cadorna knew his troops couldn't match Austria-Hungary in terms of equipment (even if they ''did'' ultimately manage to almost bridge the gap, with Italy actually achieving a superiority in artillery), so he gambled on the enemy having to fight on two fronts (with the other being ''Russia'') to achieve local superiority. It ended up failing, but barely: Austria-Hungary ended up breaking through the Italian lines and giving Italy a hell of a CurbStompBattle at Caporetto ([[ShockingDefeatLegacy to this day, over a hundred years after the battle, Italians still use the name "Caporetto" to indicate "crushing defeat"]]), but the Austro-Hungarians ''were'' on the verge of collapsing and in an untenable position (that's why they attacked in the first place), and the only reason they managed to pull it off was a combination of idiocy from Italian officers (who could have spoiled the attack had they been smart enough to act on the intelligence they had), the unexpected Russian collapse allowing the Austro-Hungarians to bring most of their forces to the Italian front, and Italian politicians declaring war on Germany too, thus giving them the excuse they needed to send in some elite forces to soften up the Italian lines.
** Then done successfully by Cadorna's successor Armando Diaz: the Italians were on the defensive and forced to mobilize their last reserves, but their main weapon factories (a major target of the Austro-Hungarian offensive) were intact and free ([[ProperlyParanoid thanks to a mountain Cadorna had filled with artillery specifically for this case]]), Germany had recalled their troops, Allied support had finally bridged the equipment gap, and Austria-Hungary had mobilized their last reserves ''before'' Caporetto, thus they couldn't replace the losses from their attempts at breaking the new Italian defensive line.
* Roadrunners prefer to hunt rattlesnakes around dawn so that the snake doesn't have a chance to warm up in the sun, as cold makes them slow and lethargic. They will also make the snake strike and miss until the snake is tired.
* During the UsefulNotes/AmericanCivilWar, both sides wanted to use this after the initial battles of the war showed that neither side would end the fight quickly. The Confederate States of America hoped to fight a defensive war until economic pressure gave them foreign allies who would force the United States of America to stop fighting. The Union's Anaconda Plan intended to squeeze the fight out of the South by taking the Mississippi River and cutting the Confederacy into pieces while blockading it to keep it from using its control of cotton to stay solvent and gain allies. The South's strategy died after the battle of Antietam gave Lincoln an opening to use the Emancipation Proclamation and focus foreign attention on slavery rather than purely economic terms.[[note]]Previously Great Britain had favored the Confederacy simply as a means to weaken the United States for British economic gain. But slavery, which the British Empire had abolished decades earlier, was despised by the British people, and this not-quite-alliance had only been palatable because slavery was legal in both sides of the Civil War. Once the Union openly declared itself opposed to slavery, supporting slavers in a war against abolitionists was untenable in Britain.[[/note]] When the South tried to alter their strategy, Gettysburg forced them back on the defensive. Over the course of the war, the North realized that since the South had so much less manpower than the North (the North could field about twice as many soldiers as the South) that it actually benefited the South more than the North for the North to continue prisoner exchanges. The resulting end of the exchanges led to the South being ground down on the defensive, facing larger manpower shortages than ever before, with no hope of foreign allies coming to their aid, debts mounting, and Sherman's March to the Sea bringing the war to Southern civilians, providing a good incentive for slaves deep in the South to run away and hurt the economy even more.
-->'''General Sherman:''' I would make this war as severe as possible, and show no symptoms of tiring till the South begs for mercy.
* This was the key to Mexico's victory against France and their PuppetKing Maximillian Hapsburg during the French intervention in Mexico. A critical HoldTheLine victory at Puebla on UsefulNotes/CincoDeMayo delayed the French long enough for LaResistance to be organized, and also gave the Union the opportunity to turn the tables against the Confederacy. The Mexican republicans then held out long enough for a re-united U.S. to start using diplomatic and military pressure to [[ShameIfSomethingHappened "persuade"]] the French to leave Mexico. The French public was also getting increasingly irate at the huge amounts of money the French government was sinking into the Mexican adventure, despite their inability to defeat the Mexicans, and wanting military resources focused more on the rising threat of Prussia.
* A lot of historical [[TheSiege sieges]] would end up this way, especially in eras prior to organized supply trains when armies fed off the surrounding land as a rule -- StormingTheCastle was relatively rare due to the difficulty of attacking well-fortified positions. Many sieges were endurance contests of which side could keep their army together and fed longer before the other side gave up.
* Business competing with each other have been known to do this. For instance, business A lowers prices to undercut business B, until both businesses are operating at very low profit margin, or sometimes even at a loss. The business who can keep on tanking the low margins longer will eventually win; the loser either goes bankrupt or sells out to the winner, after which the winner can raise prices again because there's no more competition. This is a particularly viable strategy for mega corps such as Amazon who are diversified into multiple sectors of business: they make so much money off of certain high-margin divisions that they can afford to support new ventures into low-margin industries even if they lose money for the first several years of operation.
* This is the unscrupulous point behind [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_lawsuit_against_public_participation SLAPP]] ([[FunWithAcronyms Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation]]) [[FrivolousLawsuit lawsuits]]: forcing the target to put up a legal defense until the costs or stress get to a point where they just give up.
** For that matter, many, many legal cases in the United States, both civil and criminal, never see the light of a court room as many are settled out of court before they ever face a trial. This is often done by the defense in civil cases, either to avoid revealing inconvenient information during Discovery or to avoid setting an inconvenient precedent. In criminal law, it can depend on how likely the prosecution is to get a conviction on the charges as well as the defense's unwillingness to risk going to jail.
* This is more or less how UsefulNotes/TheEmuWar was won... by the ''emus''. While the emus couldn't really fight back against people with guns, killing the emus was surprisingly difficult due to their speed, durability, and scatter tactics, meaning the people tasked with killing the emus ran out of ammo while barely making a dent in the emus' population.
[[/folder]]

* In ''[[https://archiveofourown.org/works/25927015/chapters/63016108 Crimson and Noire]]'', [[spoiler:Master Fu and Marianne's original plan against the Butterfly villain Monarch was to invoke this trope. The Butterfly Miraculous was damaged years before the story, so they selected Crimson Bug and Lady Noir to fight off the Akumas until the Monarch suffered enough damage that she could no longer use it. However, in the six months since her debut, she had sent twice as many akumas compared to previous users who died after one or two years. And with their aging bodies, Fu and Marianne have no choice but to prepare to [[PassingTheTorch pass the mantle of Guardians]] to the teen heroes in the hope they will find and defeat Monarch]].

** Taken UpToEleven with the Stall tactic in the competitive scene. Entry hazards, status conditions like poison, and healing moves like Recover and Wish mean that certain very tanky pokemon can simply outlast whatever the opponent can throw at them. Stall players tend to abuse ElementalRockPaperScissors to force the opponent to constantly switch to their counter to whatever the Stall user has out, letting them switch to something else or heal up in the meantime, all while the opponent's health is cut into by the above damage sources.

** [[UsefulNotes/KatanasOfTheRisingSun Japan's initial strategy]] in WWII was a fast war, defeating the US Navy in a [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kantai_Kessen decisive sea battle]] and suing for an advantageous peace before the American industrial capacities put that goal out of reach[[note]]the loss of four fleet carriers at Midway six months after Pearl Harbor was the beginning of their downward spiral, and things became ''much'' worse once the US began churning out warships and planes at a rate that the Japanese could never afford[[/note]]. Later, when they were losing, that changed to giving the US losses so horrendous that the latter would sue for a peace where they at least could have a somewhat upper hand.

* In ''Series/{{Daredevil|2015}}'', this was how "Battlin'" Jack Murdock earned his [[{{Jobber}} relatively few victories]] in his boxing career: by letting the other guy beat the crap out of him until they were too tired to beat the crap out of him anymore, at which point Jack would start beating the crap out of the other guy and win with minimal effort. What got him killed was when he refused to take a dive in a match against Carl "The Crusher" Creel. It's important to note that Creel had a reputation for cheating by turning his fists into steel underneath his gloves. Now ''that'' takes endurance.
* ''Series/DoctorWho'': Pretty much how the [[GreatOffscreenWar Time War]] played out. The Time Lords had absolute technological superiority over the Daleks. But the Daleks had greater numbers, persistence and a driving compulsion to exterminate all non-Dalek life. Notably, the Time Lords were too scared to break out their most powerful weapon because it was designed to pass judgment on anyone who dared to use it. The Daleks simply kept fighting their way through everything the Time Lords threw at them until they were able to besiege Gallifrey itself. [[spoiler:Then subverted when the Doctor tricked them into blowing themselves up by moving the planet into a PocketDimension just as the Dalek fleet encircling it unleashed their full firepower.]]

* ''Series/StargateAtlantis'': The Wraith defeated the [[{{Precursors}} Ancients]] by utilizing this method of warfare. At first, the Ancients' [[SufficientlyAdvancedAliens highly advanced technology]] made sure that they won every single battle. With each win, they pressed further into Wraith territory, eventually losing three ships to the Wraith. The Wraith captured the Zero-Point Modules used to power the ships and re-purposed them for their own use, increasing their numbers one-hundred-fold. At that point, it didn't matter how many times the Ancients won; each of their victories cost them more resources than the Wraith for each of their losses. Towards the end of the war, the Wraith pushed back the Ancients to where they only controlled Atlantis. When the Wraith managed to approach even that, the remaining Ancients sank their city and fled back to Earth.

Compare and contrast WinsByDoingAbsolutelyNothing, MyDefenseNeedNotProtectMeForever, SuperPersistentPredator, DeathOfAThousandCuts, or HitAndRunTactics.

* Anglosphere popular culture would consider this "the Russia Gambit", as this is how people in English-speaking countries believe Russia won the UsefulNotes/TheNapoleonicWars and UsefulNotes/WorldWarII, supposedly by Russia constantly retreating into colder and colder territory while [[WeHaveReserves using their near-limitless numbers]] to slowly wear the invaders down. The reality is that while weather and climate are significant factors in warfare within Russia, they are only problematic when you fail to respect them. Moreover while it is true that powerful combatants like France and Russia have fielded, destroyed, and lost forces on a vastly larger scale to countries like the USA and Britain, the actual resources of such countries are hardly infinite.

* Business competing with each other have been known to do this. For instance, business A lowers prices to undercut business B, until both businesses are operating at very low profit margin -- sometimes even at a loss. The business who can keep on tanking the low margins longer will eventually win.