Sparks: Air raid sirens in Bahrain as Iranian missiles and drones head for Gulf neighbors

From the desk where I draft letters I know will be ignored, I watch fear become the only policy that needs no debate.

Fear of a rival's power and interest in regional dominance drive this action, not the stated grievances.

Why do millions consent to be terrified by the few who command these flying instruments of fear?

Power that answers to no external account grows until it must test its absolute reach.

What do we mean by 'security' when the means to achieve it makes everyone less secure?

A machine built for navigation can be repurposed for destruction, its potential perverted by a change in variable.

The creator watches his invention fly toward its target, already disavowing the consequence of its impact.

A siren's wail means find cover now and calculate the direction of the next attack later.

This slight variation in provocation, inherited from the last conflict, tests the environment for a new equilibrium of terror.

An experiment in deterrence fails when the first measurement is the number of civilians running for shelter.

See the shopkeeper bolt his door, a single action that illustrates the collapse of trade under fear.

The madman who destroys a fence first must explain why it was built, lest he destroy a truce.

Hospitality's law is broken when a guest sends fire instead of messengers ahead of his arrival.

Hateful things: the precise mechanical buzz of a weapon that has forgotten the elegance of a bird's flight.

Nothing so concentrates a lawmaker's mind on peace as the sound of a weapon he did not pay for coming his way.

'Preemptive deterrence' is the phrase a state uses to describe the war it started today.

Count the sorties, log the timestamps, and the pattern of aggression emerges from the myth of isolated incidents.