Cynical, but, if you consider the current “kinetic military action” in Libya, way to close to reality. Indeed, this highlights the question: When does it become too easy to go to war?
Jonathan Schell sums it up in the Guardian:
American planes are taking off, they are entering Libyan air space, they are locating targets, they are dropping bombs, and the bombs are killing and injuring people and destroying things. It is war. Some say it is a good war and some say it is a bad war, but surely it is a war.
Nonetheless, the Obama administration insists it is not a war. Why?
…, the balance of forces is so lopsided in favour of the United States that no Americans are dying or are threatened with dying. War is only war, it seems, when Americans are dying, when we die. When only they, the Libyans, die, it is something else …
— Schell (2011): Libya: it’s not a war if Americans can’t get hurt