Half of what’s wrong with the world is because of the idiocy known as proportionate response. What you want is disproportionate response that destroys the enemies ability to attack you for decades. Then other enemies will fear you and leave you alone. This tit for tat silliness just encourages the bad guys.
Make them beg for you to stop killing them is my view of it. Sure it’s brutal, but it did end WWII, and we had Germany,Italy, and Japan not at war with us for a long time.
No, what you want is a preemptive response. When you find out someone is building a weapon with which to kill you, you go confront the son of a b*tch and demand a throw down right now before he has the means to hurt you.
Curtis LeMay was right. He has always been right.