There is a broader strategic understanding of power, such that an underdog doing violence can afford the authoritarian government political capital to retaliate disproportionately. A peer doing violence authorizes retaliation in kind. A superior force doing violence can only realistically be retreated from until the tables can be turned.
Oct 7th is a great case in point. Palestinians revolted and Israelis spent the next year paying them back with hellfire missiles into ambulances and machine gun rounds into NICU units, while their friends in the US and Germany and Russia and Saudi Arabia clapped. Yemen and Iran interceding on Gaza’s behalf might be seen as noble from a certain point of view, but it failed to halt the slaughter. Meanwhile, the Israelis and their American allies expanded the scope of violence into the West Bank, the Persian Gulf, Lebanon, and Syria.
Using violence doesn’t mean you’ll win. It means you’ll legitimize a reprisal (which threatens to legitimize a reprisal, etc, etc). Escalate far enough and you end up with the Twin Towers in flames or a mushroom cloud over Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It ends with the obliteration of whole countries and the loss of millions of lives.
Who comes out ahead after all of this? Who benefits in the long run? I’m having a hard time finding any winners.
There is a broader strategic understanding of power, such that an underdog doing violence can afford the authoritarian government political capital to retaliate disproportionately. A peer doing violence authorizes retaliation in kind. A superior force doing violence can only realistically be retreated from until the tables can be turned.
Oct 7th is a great case in point. Palestinians revolted and Israelis spent the next year paying them back with hellfire missiles into ambulances and machine gun rounds into NICU units, while their friends in the US and Germany and Russia and Saudi Arabia clapped. Yemen and Iran interceding on Gaza’s behalf might be seen as noble from a certain point of view, but it failed to halt the slaughter. Meanwhile, the Israelis and their American allies expanded the scope of violence into the West Bank, the Persian Gulf, Lebanon, and Syria.
Using violence doesn’t mean you’ll win. It means you’ll legitimize a reprisal (which threatens to legitimize a reprisal, etc, etc). Escalate far enough and you end up with the Twin Towers in flames or a mushroom cloud over Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It ends with the obliteration of whole countries and the loss of millions of lives.
Who comes out ahead after all of this? Who benefits in the long run? I’m having a hard time finding any winners.
Sometimes violence just makes sure the other side doesn’t win either.