parihaka said:1. Firstly it's he, not she, and parihaka, not parika.
2. Secondly, I'm not advocating constant withdrawl or in any way not resisting Israeli agression, but simply not letting your enemy know your intention beforehand and not providing an excuse for escalation and involvement when that helps no one.
3. What I WOULD say to Assad is if you need to make public utterances of this nature to give yourself backbone, you need a new job.
4. Under whatever scenario of escalation to a convential war, Syria looses, irrespective of whether Israel looses or not. Any leader under these circumstances should be trying to cool the situation down, not heat it up with meaningless public rhetoric.
1. So Jana is the only girl on this forum and shes left
2. What you are intending is not for constant withdrawal, but the effect of what you are suggesting IS constant withdrawal.
Telling the opponent of your intentions in this case doesnt increase but rather Decreases the chances of escalation.
3. The public utterance is the "correct" move to make.
4. True, and that is why Syrian tanks are not going to be storming into the Golan heights or Syrian planes in Israel or Syrian Artillery shells being the first to fly into Israel.
I wonder if you have ever experienced school bullying. Its usually the physically weak children who are bullied for pocket money (a given). But theres another characteristic as well, these chilren are the ones who never resist.
Every time the bully comes up, they face two choices to fight and keep money or not to fight and give money. Every time its rational for them to give the money.
Take a step back, even though at each turn giving the money is efficient, in the long run it is not. At the first turn if the weak child fights (and loses) the cost of the fight usually for the bully is not enuf for the petty pocket money (even if he wins the fight).
Take another step back, what if before the bully ever comes to him (but he knows the bully is coming) the weak child tells the entire class that he will fight.
Now the weak child cant back down. (too humiliating). Sum1 from class runs up and tells the bully what happened. The bully now knows that
1. The weak child is going to fight because it will be too humiliating for him to back down
2. The pocket money is not worth the fight.
The weak child doesnt fight at all. The key to this story is Communication (or signalling as known in game theory) . If someone from the class hadnt told the bully about the weak child's Committment, the fight would happen.
In a similar fashion Syria's Committment is ineffective unless its Signalled (communicated) to Israel. In Syria's case, the Committment and the Signalling happens in the one Action. The Committment happens in the broadcast (to the school children) , the bully is also informed in the broadcast.