[thulldud]

“Diplomacy - the art of saying ‘Nice, Doggie!’ until you can find a rock.”

Heh.

I like the way Douglas Adams said it:

The history of every major civilization passes through three distinct and recognizable phases: survival, inquiry, and sophistication, also known as the "How", "Why", and "Where" phases. For example, the first phase may be characterized by the question, "How shall we eat?", the second by the question "Why do we eat?", and the third by the question, "Where shall we have lunch?"

The history of warfare is similarly divided, although here the phases are Retribution, Anticipation, and Diplomacy. Thus:

• Retribution: "I'm going to kill you because you killed my brother."
• Anticipation: "I'm going to kill you because you killed MY brother."
• Diplomacy: "I'm going to kill my brother and then kill you on the pretext that YOUR brother did it."

There was a time when the US State Dept. was an American institution. That time is almost beyond the reach of living memory.

[thulldud]

Hmph. I got “Anticipation” wrong there, it’s actually:

Anticipation: I’m going to kill you because I killed YOUR brother.

Comes of doing things in a hurry, you end up killing the worng fellow’s brother....