"Bullies don’t respect ‘friendly gestures’, they only back down when stood up to,"
Trouble is flitlicker that simplistic statement has been used as the justification for 95% of military actions in the last 70 years - and its often turned out to be simplistic & wrong and has turned into a disaster - Suez, Vietnam 3 times), Yemen (twice), Afghanistan (twice), Iraq, Libya
you can see why people aren't very convinced