Even assuming that there are such things that may be called "first principles", there usually is an awful amount of movement (leeway) around them which may not

Even assuming that there are such things that may be called "first principles", there usually is an awful amount of movement (leeway) around them which may not be always admitted openly and which makes the object of politics. (The problem in the example given, about a company faced with an important decision about how to respond to an external force, is an omnipresent problem that independent tribes, city-states, or nations had/have, and is nothing but a political decision - "do we fight or do we surrender?") Read again this: "Were we really destined to be a profitable company that nobody really cared about except for a few carriers? Is this what our team signed up for?" and say it's not a political rhetoric in every way? For the same situation different people can lead their audience to totally different "obvious" conclusions depending on how will they construct the decision rationale (what will they take into account or emphasize and what will they ignore or downplay). The real craft/trick here is how to appear like an impartial judge (i.e. neutral) in the process.