I love the bit explaining how bullies are cowards.
What is “Escalation Management?” A waitered down version of pacifism induced by fear and ignorance.
The Captain
It the current case, it’s giving Ukraine enough to hang on, but not enough to do real damage to Russia.
In the other current case, helping Israel shoot down rockets and drones (which the US will not do for Ukraine) to render an Iranian attack ineffective, then making sure the Israelis don’t launch more than a pinprick in retaliation.
Steve
Hard to imagine anything more stupid, counterproductive, and CRUEL.
The Captain
Throwing Proles under the bus, was USian policy when Kissenger had influence. Didn’t matter how many thousands of dissidents were snatched, tortured, and killed by the Argentine junta, as long as the junta paid lip service to being “good anti-communists”. The US was in the vanguard when Saddam had the bad form to invade Kuwait and disrupt the US’ oil supply, but did the US send a carrier group to the Falklands to give the Brits some air cover when the Argentine junta invaded? Nope.
Steve
Yep. Giving Ukraine more weapons upfront would likely mean less need for weapons overall. This policy of thinking about it for while before giving them the good stuff in not the right one, in my view.
It’s the literal definition of “proportional response”! Basically, proportional response serves to keep the conflict going for as long as possible.