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Comment on YSK: Europe Can Wreak HAVOC On America Without Firing a Bullet.

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.

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MachineFab812@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ 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?

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- Cethin@lemmy.zip ⁨10⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  Did they make this threat before? I never heard it if they did. Yeah, a threat is only good as long as the other party believes you’re going to act on it, so if they did threaten it before then they should. However, again, this isn’t going to prevent anything, except for making them believe your threats are good. What good will come out of them taking this action? (By this, I don’t mean collapsing the US economy, which will hurt a lot of people. I mean, does it prevent harm.)
  
  I don’t believe I contradicted myself. Could you point out how? I’m not sure how abducting Moduro is related to this. However, I do believe he’s been saying we should remove him for a long time, though I think most people ignored it because it would have been seen as crazy, and gets mixed up with all his other insane ramblings. I don’t know the relevance of this question though.
  
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  - MachineFab812@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨9⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    Trump didn’t specify how we would remove Maduro in the same way its pointless for Europe to specify exactly how they could or would retaliate. Its more than enough for there to be multiple options to make them all valid when it comes time to say “we warned you”.
    
    Please don’t confuse my enthusiasm for one option that’s been shown to be possible and devestating, for me saying this is the only option Europe should consider. On the contrary, I’m just wishing they would pick an option that matters and run with it already. All they’ve done is show their belly like a submissive dog.
    
    They don’t even appear to care about plausible deniability any more. Arresting Gaza protestors is just such a good, strong-arm look for going against Trump. Fear of Europe must be why so many churches in my area are flying Israeli flags at the moment.
    
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    Cethin@lemmy.zip ⁨1⁩ ⁨hour⁩ ago
    
    As for how you contradicted yourself, you said “if the threat isn’t listened to then they act on it”, then went on to claim a threat that has to be followed-through on is worthless. On the contrary, a threat that has been known all-along is rendered moot when you spell it out long after the time for it is past.
    
    That’s not a contradiction. If you have to follow through on your threat then it failed to achieve its goal. Usually it’s not a desired outcome. It doesn’t gain you a thing. It still needs to be done though or your threats will be ignored.
    
    Its the threat you have to verbalize that’s worthless.
    
    It depends on the context, but usually no. There needs to be clear boundaries where the threat becomes acted upon for it to be effective most of the time.
    
    its a threat made-up on the spot that’s easilly invalidated in so, so many ways.
    
    This is exactly my point. This threat was just made up. It can’t be used retroactively. That’s not how things work. They need to set boundaries, then execute it if the lines are crossed. If you set boundaries that have already been crossed then what are you trying to gain?
    
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