Weatherlawyer wrote:

The forces involved in the dynamics of a system over a given period can
be measured. The power required to hold that system intact and move
other systems out of the way is not?

A short animation of fluid flow he
http://www.math.rug.nl/~veldman/movies/block_200.mpg

And lots of great pics and links he
http://www.galleryoffluidmechanics.com/vortex/re200.htm

(I haven't quite answered the million dollar question yet though.)