War is a means, not an end. If we can achieve the same results through diplomacy and limited, covert engagements, so be it. My only fear, however, is that we will change our end objectives in order to avoid war at any cost. This is what happened at Munich, and it served only to postpone a far worse conflict.
Very true. That is one of the messages of Sun Tzu and Clausewitz. We have to know what our goal is and patiently go about doing it... until everyone associated with this attack is dead. No need to make a big noise that will create a bigger problem than we already have. Just lots and lots of small paybacks. The bad guys will get the message, and live in fear the rest of their days until their turn comes.
But if this does turn out to have been state-sponsored, then we likely won't be able to avoid getting ourselves a lot of publicity.
Munich is misleading, and poor old Neville Chamberlain gets a bad rap. At the time Chamberlain feared Bolshevism more than he did Hitler, and he thought that Communism was what England would have to fight. It was also the Great Depression and he needed to buy time in order to rearm England. We all condemn Chamberlain because we know what happened next, but he really wasn't some sort of antiwar pacifist.