” Speak softly, carry a big stick.”
Sometimes you can spare everyone a lot of pain by just telling them you’ll shoot them between the eyes.
And mean it.
In my many years in inner Chicago, to tell people you’ll shoot them between the eyes and mean it means that you have done it already and the police are looking for you. Hundreds of people will test you to see how far they can push you before you do it.
For 99.9% of people who talk big, they do not follow thru... they are like Obama. the 0.1% who enforce their red line become the notorious crime rate in Chicago.
The Mid-East, N. Korea don’t seem much different from inner city Chicago. My life has been saved twice by people who practiced concealed carry and then pulled out their Saturday night special to scare away my attacker. They never boasted about their concealed carry. It was a secret from everyone. When they pulled it out, they did not say anything. The time for talk had ended.
A bluff will almost always be tested until it is proven to either be a bluff, or not.