If I'm stuck living with someone and they regularly punch me in the face for "preventative" reasons, I'll put rat poison in their coffee.

Domestic abuser logic seems ill-advised as foreign policy. Everyone already knows the US MIC can kill them personally with impunity if wished.

Seems exactly like someone who knows the equivalent of being punched in the face. Thats not a deterrent, it's an action that provokes retaliatory action from a place of fear of needing to defend ones self. If a group is dangerous enough for one to think they could do harm, leaving them without options/scaring them is an awful strategy

You want to deter wild animals, not scare or corner them. Rattlesnakes want to deter you from stepping on them, not scare you into doing so.

I haven’t given anyone a reason to want to punch me in the face :)