One of the problems with that line of thinking though is it smacks very heavily of the notion "we'd better not do it because that gives them permission to do it". Which is utter lunacy because they're already doing it and they're going to do it anyways no matter what we do. So we can either match them or be overrun. There is no scenario where if we stop, they also stop. There is they do it and we do it, and they do it and we don't and we lose. Those are the only two options.
My line of thinking is more "smack their instigators down hard (because they just shot one of ours), and only if they've shown they can behave* can there be a mutual de-escalation where if either side instigates they get smacked down."
Unless and until that happens you have to do tit for tat. Arguably smacking them down hard itself is tit for tat since that's what they did for 1/6.
* Which given their total reversal in less than 24 hours is highly improbable.
One of the problems with that line of thinking though is it smacks very heavily of the notion "we'd better not do it because that gives them permission to do it". Which is utter lunacy because they're already doing it and they're going to do it anyways no matter what we do. So we can either match them or be overrun. There is no scenario where if we stop, they also stop. There is they do it and we do it, and they do it and we don't and we lose. Those are the only two options.
My line of thinking is more "smack their instigators down hard (because they just shot one of ours), and only if they've shown they can behave* can there be a mutual de-escalation where if either side instigates they get smacked down."
Unless and until that happens you have to do tit for tat. Arguably smacking them down hard itself is tit for tat since that's what they did for 1/6.
* Which given their total reversal in less than 24 hours is highly improbable.