There aren't rules. Casus Belli will be manufactured if war is desired and if not then these acts are ignored and the respectable media will dutifully keep it s

There aren't rules. Casus Belli will be manufactured if war is desired and if not then these acts are ignored and the respectable media will dutifully keep it suppressed. Right now the US security apparatus is trying its damnedest to maintain the illusion of invincibility by avoiding serious humiliation. Civilian leadership has prioritized ideological orientation over lethality for at least two decades. This is good if you're scared of a coup that would kick out all the ideologues who've made their long march through the institutions since Wilson, but a disaster if you want to win an armed conflict. That said civilian leadership behaves like a mafia that protects good-fellas and keeps the competent out of leadership shows in how The State Department has miscalculated and mismanaged delicate situations with disappointing consistency from Benghazi to Venezuela to the completely laughable strategy of trying to overcome the Russian Federation with social shaming and loss of access to financial institutions as if Vladimir Putin was some naughty YouTuber they could cancel for an off-color joke. The Federal Reserve can't print artillery shells. Ukraine has made it clear that combined arms doctrine and NATO weapon systems 10× the cost of their competitors' is a paper tiger. Empires have a shelf life.