@akkartik you have to meet Darth Vader with a credible threat of punishing his unilateral alterations of the deal. but the point of maintaining that credible threat is to sustain the deal without ever having to resort to violence at all.

@akkartik (even better than punishment, much better than punishment, is to ensure he never has the capacity to unilaterally alter the deal. because even when you can punish, adventurism+effective punishment means an awful catastrophe, while prevention, denial of the capacity to adventure at all, yields a mutually beneficial peace.)