Mike,
All good thoughts. I do think one of the critical distinctions is identifying if the conflict is internal to the state, or between states (and one's role as an intervening party does not affect the answer to that analysis).
Fact is, that if your son gets angry and frustrated and punches you in the nose, you would be a total fool if you respsonded in the same way if a guy down at the corner bar gets angry and frustrated and punches you in the nose. Conflict within the family must be resolved differently than conflict between families. Even if in both cases you had to act out physically to stop the initial violence.
And, BTW, a father in that situation who blames the entire episode on his son, and does nothing to understand and address his own failures that helped bring them to the point, deserves the lousy results he is sure to reap. Same goes for governments.
Similarly, if that father is smaller, weaker, less intelligent than that son, and he goes and gets his big strong friend from down the street to come over and kick his son's ass for him, he pretty much deserves what he gets as well, and may well wonder why that "friend" starts taking over his house in general, and why is son may fear the friend, but despises him more than ever. Again, same goes for governments.
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