Disproportionate”. Can anyone recall a war won by proportionate measures?

When war is proportionate it more often turns into a Stalingrad—or perhaps an Ukraine—until one side finds a disproportionate response that will change endless stasis to victory.

World War II was not won by a proportionate response to Pearl Harbor. And what would be a proportionate response to the murder of a thousand civilians?

Under the logic of “proportionality,” ought the Israeli state then invade Gaza and likewise murder a thousand of its civilians? The whole concept of a “proportionate" response to an unprovoked massacre of women and children asleep in their homes and during a peace is absurd.

Victor Davis Hanson