• Cethin@lemmy.zip
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    1 day ago

    I said this in another thread but I’ll say it again, threats are only useful if you hold leverage. If they blow their load, what else can they hold over the heads of the US? They need to threaten, and then if they threat isn’t listened to then they act on it. Doing it now just ensures there’s not much of a punishment left to be dealt, so there’s no reason not to invade. Sure, the economy will collapse, but that would happen either way in the case they act now.

    If I hold a knife to you and threaten you with it, you’ll listen. If I just stab you then what reason do you have to listen? Just like nukes, the only use for a threat is in not using it. If you do have to use it then you’ve lost the reason they may have held back.

    • MachineFab812@discuss.tchncs.de
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      32 minutes ago

      No one is proposing they rattle their saber. The scale of the threat has long been too great to bother speaking aloud, and putting it into words instead of action would just be laugable.

      Again, the “listened to” or no phase is past the horizon, around the curve and honestly several hills and valleys back in the rear-view mirror. A threat that isn’t followed-through on or is spoken only after you’ll obviously never act isn’t even a threat any more; Its a mark of submission.

      Nice job contradicting yourself in that second paragraph though. Let me ask you this: Did Trump bother saying we were going to, could, or “should” abduct Maduro in advance?