In one embodiment, a network node automatically cycles among packet traffic flows and subjects the currently selected packet flows to varying drop probabilities in a packet network, such as, but not limited to in response to congestion in a device or network. Packets of a currently selected packet traffic flow are subjected to a drop or forward decision with a higher drop probability than packets of a currently non-selected flow. By cycling through all of these packet traffic flows, all of these packet flows are subjected to the drop or forward decision in the long term approximately uniformly, thus providing fairness to all packet traffic flows. In the short term, packets of a currently selected flow are targeted for possible dropping with a higher drop probability providing unfairness to the currently selected flows over the non-selected flows.