And Lo, the Swaggering Bully Returns

Via the Drudge Report, I read the short article linked to the post title. Honestly, how absurd can you get? "You taking defensive measures is going to force us to threaten to attack you!!" You might as well say "if you install locks on your doors, I'm going to be forced to break in and steal your stuff! It's your own fault!"

The only appropriate response to this would be "well, if you begin ramping up your ability to bomb us, then we'll just have to ACTUALLY bomb you." Granted, that's a bit juvenile, but what else can you do about this kind of behavior? Just going ahead with what you were doing in the first place as if no threat had been uttered may not be good enough. (It may, so that's definitely the first thing you should do.) I seriously doubt Russia will actually go through with this threat, too, but doubting it doesn't make it so.

I'm glad I'm not responsible for deciding what obnoxious threats, from Russia, from the Middle East, from China or India or Pakistan or North Korea, are actually credible enough that we should just go ahead and bomb them. That is a job for serious men in suits (and yes, sure, women also, I just like the mental image of serious men in suits better--I'm partial to a sharp-dressed man) who aren't reduced to anxious cowering or hysterical overreaction when somebody threatens them.

Too bad that our current government seems to be horribly short on that sort of person.