English to Portuguese Other Slang

Cultural transformation indeed, I thought. But right on. My layman’s view of the future of warfare was shaped by Major General Bob Scales, the retired head of the U.S. Army War College, a military historian, and the author of the brilliant essay “Clausewitz and World War IV,” in the Armed Forces Journal. General Scales argued that World War I was a chemical war, World War II was a physics and mathematics war, World War III was a computer war, and that World War IV (which we have entered into already) would be a human war. No sane enemy would confront the United States in the air, on the sea, or with missiles. We are five for five in that kind of warfare. Unfortunately, all the wars that we have fought recently are human wars, and we are zero for seven in these. Vietnam and Iraq are paradigm examples. So it is time for the army to get serious about the human sciences, concludes Scales. An army that was just as psychologically fit as physically fit would be the nose under the tent.

Encontrei a seguinte explicação: the meaning is based on the fanciful idea that a camel will stick his nose into your tent, and if you do nothing about it, he'll get his whole head in, then his neck, and, eventually be destructively blundering around in a space where he doesn't belong. The moral of the story is to prevent damage by taking action early. (A stitch in time, as it were.) If your nosy neighbor comes to your house without invitatiion, and you say nothing, pretty soon the nieghbor will be barging in without knocking (as they do on sitcoms.) Similar to warnings about "the slippery slope."

Alguma sugestão, em português, que se encaixe no contexto?

Obrigada desde já.