The statement above - that we must hit our enemies with 10x the force when they hit us - causes a lot of heated rhetoric from both sides, especially online. We saw this from the left after President Trump killed Soleimani and we’re seeing it now from some on the right in the aftermath of the attack on our service members in Jordan.
When Soleimani was killed under Trump, World War III didn’t materialize like the leftist pundits said it would. Instead we entered a period of peace because we displayed strength. Strong deterrence has never started a war, but it often prevents them.
Isolationists on the left and right still like to argue that deterrence will lead to war if we’re too aggressive. So let’s look at the inverse. What happens when we don’t establish strong deterrence, like we’ve seen time and time again under Joe Biden? Americans get killed. That is the strongest incentive to always strike harder.
There’s always going to be a risk assessment when we respond to foreign adversaries. My advice: choose a response that makes you just a little uncomfortable. When you do this, you choose a disproportionate response. You’re choosing to hit harder than they hit us. That’s the only way to establish deterrence when we’re dealing with countries like Iran. We always need to hit harder, faster, stronger.
Iran is scared right now — that’s good. We need to use that to our advantage with our response. Biden has waited way too long to react. That’s a huge problem. He should take my advice and deliver a strategic, forceful response. Anything else is a failure on his part, and we ultimately suffer in the long run.
