[throwaway2016a]

Lol, love the screen name.

But in that scenario the bully is being actively aggressive. I guess to carry on the analogy, what other posters are suggesting is to punch the bully for threatening to beat you up with a baseball bat. First, the bat is not a threat to you yet and second if you do punch the bully you can be pretty sure that unless you knock him out permanently he's going to come back swinging, and his friends will be with him.

In fairness, I did punch my bully in the face in high school and it did effectively get rid of him in my case. But it certainly could have gone differently. And one possible reason it went that way is because my allies were stronger than his (my friends were on the football team and his were potheads). But Russia and China are not weak.

Edit: On the tarmac comment. So? It's politics. You need a thicker skin than that. The best way to handle that is to show you don't give a shit what they think. If you show them that doing something that stupid and petty hurts you it only encourages more. Let them have their laugh and let them push harder if they want. Stay strong. And one day they will either give up or push too hard, and when they push too hard you destroy them. Part of being strong is knowing when to use your strength and when to use restraint.