Just because someone does something instead of fighting a war doesn’t make whatever they actually did do right. They could also do neither thing. Especially if the alternative to war turns out to not actually achieve the goal the war would have achieved, leaving them in the same position of deciding whether to do a bad thing or not, after having already done another different bad thing.

I didn’t ask whether it was better or worse than declaring a war; it’s clearly less bad than starting a war.

But that doesn’t mean it’s right. Maybe doing neither a war nor sanctions, but something else, or nothing, is the right thing to do.

Does that work?

Is it right to tell random people “hey you, it’s your job to break local laws and topple your dictator, we could invade you with actual trained military people but that would be inconvenient for us”?