No, the escalation was bombing US soil. Rolling over and letting China bomb US soil and not doing the same isn't de escalation, it's cowardice. You set the precedent that they can bomb us but we won't do the same. If anything, it makes escalation even more likely.
I am not saying it's deescalation to not attack SAM targets, i am not saying the U.S. should deescalate, I am not saying you can't fight that campaign, I am simply saying that fighting that campaign comes with more risk relative to other U.S. options (and less risk relative to others).
You are not brave because you think there is no difference in the likelihood of vertical escalation between hitting dual use conventional/nuclear C2 nodes in major cities and PLA APCs on Taiwan.
So you're saying the correct response to being attacked unprovoked by a peer power to to simply accept it and do nothing? Sorry man, that's cowardice. I'm not saying this because I think it makes me brave, I'm saying it because it makes the US far less safe and future attacks far more likely.
I am not saying that! The correct response may be more risky with respect to escalation, that's fine!
You're saying retaliating in kind is off limits, how you choose to dress it up doesn't really matter?
I am not and have never said that it is off limits. You seem think I have some hidden ulterior motive for saying it might be just a little risky to hit hundreds dual use targets and targets in populated areas and I do not.
No, I don't think you have ulterior motives, I think you're flatly wrong and advocating for a policy that would lead to more war and death and destruction, not less. In the scenario we're discussing, they already struck populated US areas, doing the same simply isn't escalation.
Do you think an American president would treat attacks on Andersen Air Force Base in Guam as equivalent to strikes against dual-use nuclear/conventional C2 targets in downtown Los Angeles?
I think attacking US assets on US territory in close proximity to US civilians, yes. You keep downplaying that, do you consider. Guam and it's people lesser than downtown LA? Hawaii is an actual state, why are they less important than LA? What if it's just Portland or Seattle?
The people don't matter and more or less, but i don't think an American president would treat the two as equivalent, especially if the targets were hypothetically dual-use, in the same way I don't think China would see strikes in major cities as equivalent to attacking Guam.
The strikes on dual-use targets undermine a nuclear deterrent more and the strikes against Downtown Los Angeles further erode the perception that the government is able to protect its population
If the people don't matter, I don't see why you keep using proximity to population centers as a metric? Why is the assumption that China's attacks are fine and non-escalatory but the American response is inherently so? You keep talking about hitting downtowns in China, but only bases in US.
Or rather, retaliating in kind is escalation, actually, and therefore shouldn't be done in your opinion.