Please don't cross into name-calling or personal attack and please don't be snarky in HN comments, no matter how wrong another comment is or you feel it is.

If you'd please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules when posting here, we'd appreciate it.

Sure, of course it's not that simple. If China for example did a cyber attack it doesn't necessitate an immediate kinetic response or some sort of gargantuan nation-state level warfare to take place.

But if one of those countries shut down the US power grid we absolutely would respond and you're naive to think that the US would not respond out of some "fear" about only fighting very asymmetric wars.

Amongst some there seems to be this idea that because the US has taken military action in other countries over the years, more recent being more important, and because those countries "couldn't fight back" that the US is unable or unwilling to take further action against other nation states that theoretically could fight back (India could not, for example as a weak military power with nuclear weapons), but instead I'd caution you look at those action with respect to the ability of other countries to take action.

In other words, it feels good to throw in zingers like the US only beats up on weaker countries or something which, let's be frank would be every country or bloc except China, but you're missing the fact that those countries are not even able to project power to or willingness or ability to attack other countries.

Europe had Ukraine sabotage (according to European reports) its gas lines and gave it more weapons as a reward… so I guess the answer is that it’s complicated.