Sparks: US says it struck targets in Iran after attack on warships

A nation that relies on naval power for commerce must design a system of retaliatory force so swift and certain that no rational actor would ever test its resolve.

The names of these emperors and admirals will be as forgotten as the dust their ships stir in the water.

To designate a 'strike' and a 'target' is to create the very opposition that the action then claims to resolve.

If force is the only arbiter left between nations, then let every action be measured by the dreadful arithmetic of its necessity.

Democratic nations, loving peace yet easily roused to war, often mistake the swiftness of their retaliation for the wisdom of their statecraft.

War is the father of all, making some men targets and others the archers.

This new medicine of aerial bombardment treats only the screaming symptom while the ancient disease of mutual hatred thrives unseen.

Observe how the spiral of action and reaction follows the same mathematical progression as water circling a drain.

Theology justifies the strike and strategy demands it, yet neither domain can answer for the suffering the other ignores.

The geometry of ballistics is pure, but the political calculation that aims it remains an imprecise and bloody art.

A most efficient proposal to ensure perpetual employment for arms manufacturers by establishing a regular exchange of munitions between rival states.

Hateful things: the precise language of a military communiqué that describes the ruination of a hundred lives.

'Precision strikes on military facilities' - a phrase whose grammatical precision exists only to obscure the bloody imprecision of its meaning.