You call it courage, I call it stupidity. It may not be rule #1, but it's pretty dang close to it: "Never begin a war you know you can't win." Doing so is a failure of leadership plain and simple. You let down the people you command, and you let down yourself because it's essentially an admission that you're incapable of putting your people in a position to succeed.
It's ego getting in the way of practicality at best. And I say that as someone who rarely turns down an opportunity to punch some people in the face.