you won't see a mass mobilization until the memory of WW2 and vietnam are fully relegated to textbooks and half remembered stories from long dead relatives.

open war decs are very unpopular, and the average person in the west (currently) knows enough about geopolitics to realize we tend to only punch down. They're also expensive. Mobilization is insanely costly.

War with big moving frontlines and big troop dedications is just something you're unlikely to see unless the situation on the world stage changes in a hurry.

so much easier to use proxies and assassinations and spec ops bullshit to terrorize and weaken a nation than expend resources destroying and occupying it. There's a very loud asymmetry in the ability of nations to power project. Where the US can drop a psycho squad anywhere in the world, kill whoever they like most of the time - what's the point of a big war?

part of the revolutionary grievances for the american revolution was that the crown would dismiss judges and governors for not enforcing the crown's will, right?

well i mean, we learned from the "best" i guess - because nowadays stepping out of line gets some psycho with DID and a boner for sticking his knife in people and canoeing heads. Minimal dollars spent, the problem fixes itself as the next guy to step up realizes there's fucking nothing they can do to stop it from happening again.

This method is cheaper even with MIC grift

though the existential nature of the "war on terror" was largely fabricated, the idea of using terror and asymmetrical warfare was turned around and made into a method to more cheaply manage foreign matters, and now that nobody standing with any power gives a shit, those techniques are coming home more than they ever have (even though they've been here the entire time in their own way, the neocolonial operations are still coming home in a way they really havent)