Knocking you over with military force technically destabilizes things far more than just existing grievances which may have gone off without their intervention at all. Perhaps more destabilization than they even want things to be.
> Knocking you over with military force technically destabilizes things far more
There are just as many examples of national identity being forged in war than there are it being removed.
For example, Russian-speaking Ukrainians in eastern Ukraine had no affinity for Kyiv and didn't think of themselves as Ukrainian before Russia invaded. Now they do.
