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.

My line of thinking is more "smack them 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.