Re: more vicious because the stakes are so much smaller.
And what if you rate those stakes in proportion to the likely effect on the individual's career?
A mismanaged conflict in a far off country might blight tens of millions of lives for decades to come, but would that have left Kissinger's career crippled? Probably not, which is why he (and all the other state-level actors) get to be so blase about the outcome.