If you had knew someone with more power, even if you disliked them, would you bat at the tiger's tail? Or would you attempt to amass more power first?

[ Shade honestly didn't care so much about these things. Fascinating, and he'd lived through the age, walked the streets of both Washington and Moscow -- not here of course -- but to him, it was only a curiosity.

The wheel of history turning. ]

One gains more power, the other figures a way around it, until they both have too much, and if either one capitulates, then the world will fall to pieces around them.

Neither one wishes to go that far, and leave only ruin behind. It's about intimidation.