You've hit on why, back in the bad old days when things didn't have to be counterintuitive to be true, you HAD to go to war over an incident like this. Because if you didn't, every tin-pan dictator, pirate, and thug would know you could be pushed around and intimidated.
Of course, it is grade school-level human behavior. Class bullies need to get a punch in the nose. Of course the "elites" never learned this lesson.