Following this failure, the Han emperor realized that the nation, which just recovered from a massive civil war, was not yet strong enough to confront the Xiongnu; therefore, he resorted to the so-called "marriage alliance", or heqin, in order to ease hostility and buy time to strengthen the nation.

His blustering does little to ease hostility.

The new, earlier deadline, intended to ease Iraqi hostility to the occupation and to undermine support for continuing attacks on American troops, has forced the United States to scrap many of its other earlier plans for the future of Iraq.

That would ease hostility to foreign aid by insuring that the money is not coming at the expense of urgent needs at home.

Marissa takes this opportunity to hopefully ease hostility towards David in town.

However, Abby often attempts to get Karl to be nicer to Don, and tries to ease hostility between the two.

The Primate of the Greek Orthodox Church of North and South America is leading an effort to ease hostility between Greece and Turkey.

Mr. Bush and his secretary of state-designate, Condoleezza Rice, may ease hostility to America if they are seen to bring fresh energy - and greater balance - to their approach to the Palestinian conflict, and if they can find a way to start withdrawing from Iraq this year.

And the bomb explosion, some in the administration say, also proved that the United States must move faster than it expected to put a more international stamp on the occupation and to put more Iraqis forward as the occupation's public face, if only to ease growing Iraqi hostility toward the occupiers.