In the real world, when a deliberate harm is inflicted, the victim rarely responds proportionately. They tend to up the ante.
The appeal to “proportionate response” comes from two places. One is international law, especially the doctrine of proportionality in the law of armed conflict. The other is the technocratic mindset common in policy and media circles. Both assume that violence can be calibrated like a policy instrument. Two, that assumption fits what Charles Taylor called the buffered self. In that outlook the individual stands outside collective passions and can apply rational calculation to events. Violence becomes something like a policy knob. Turn it up a little. Turn it down a little. Maintain equilibrium.
Violence doesn’t work like that. If I were to punch a bloke without provocation, he would rarely settle for giving me one equal punch back.
If you cheat your boss, your boss is not likely to cheat you back. Instead, he fires you.
If you cheat on your spouse, your spouse will likely fire you.
In real conflicts the logic is usually deterrence and dominance, not symmetry. A state responds to violence in a way that makes future attacks less attractive. That means responding far beyond the initial injury. The goal is not numerical balance. The goal is to change the adversary’s incentives.
Think about ordinary policing. If someone punches a police officer the officer does not respond with a single punch to restore symmetry. The officer uses enough force to control the situation and prevent future resistance. The response escalates until compliance is achieved. The governing logic is authority and deterrence, not proportional exchange.
The same principle operates in war. Israel’s strategy against Hamas or Hezbollah has never been “kill the same number they killed.” The aim is to destroy capabilities and impose costs high enough that the opponent hesitates next time. Historically most wars follow that pattern. The side that absorbs a blow usually escalates in order to restore credibility.
Why does the proportionality language persist?
Part of it is moral signaling. Saying a response must be proportionate allows elites to frame themselves as guardians of restraint and universal norms. It is a way to mark distance from what they see as tribal vengeance.
Part of it is professional culture. Journalists, diplomats, and academics work in institutions that prize rule-based systems. They are trained to think conflicts can be managed through norms and calibrated incentives. The proportionality frame fits that training.
And part of it is psychological comfort. If violence can be measured and balanced, then war becomes predictable and containable. The buffered self prefers that model because it preserves the sense that rational management is possible.
But the actors actually fighting wars usually operate in a different mental universe. They worry about credibility, fear, morale, and future deterrence. Those are emotional and strategic variables that do not fit neatly into proportional formulas.
That is why the rhetoric of proportion collides with reality. The people writing columns imagine violence as a carefully calibrated instrument. The people conducting wars see it as survival of the fittest.
