Brinkmanship

Brinkmanship or brinksmanship is the practice of trying to achieve an advantageous outcome by pushing dangerous events to the brink of active conflict.

The tactic occurs in international politics, foreign policy, labor relations, contemporary military strategy (by involving the threat of nuclear weapons), terrorism, and high-stakes litigation.

The word was probably coined, on the model of Stephen Potter's "gamesmanship",[citation needed] by the American politician Adlai Stevenson in his criticism of the philosophy described as "going to the brink" during an interview with US Secretary of State John Foster Dulles during the Eisenhower administration.

[2] In the article written in Life magazine by the correspondent James R. Shepley, Dulles defined his policy of brinkmanship in these terms: "The ability to get to the verge without getting into the war is the necessary art.

[5] The pioneering game theorist Thomas Schelling defined brinkmanship as "manipulating the shared risk of war.

"[6] The essence of such a crisis is that it leads neither side to be in full control of events, which creates a serious risk of miscalculation and escalation.

During the Cold War, the Cuban Missile Crisis was an example of opposing leaders, US President John F. Kennedy and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev, continually issuing warnings with increasing force about impending nuclear exchanges without necessarily validating their statements.

[8] In the spectrum of the Cold War, the concept of brinkmanship involved the West and the Soviet Union using tactics of fear and intimidation as strategies to make the opposing side back down.

Each faction pushed dangerous situations to the brink, with the intention of making the other back down in matters of international politics and foreign policy and obtaining concessions.

That made brinkmanship utterly risky since if neither country budged, the only way to avoid mutually assured destruction was to compromise.

The British philosopher, mathematician, and intellectual Bertrand Russell compared it to the game of chicken:[9] Since the nuclear stalemate became apparent, the governments of East and West have adopted the policy which Mr. Dulles calls 'brinksmanship.'

That was a bold move as it established the stakes to be extremely high, as the action could cause massive destruction for both sides.

The threat caused an increase and a buildup of tension, with neither side wanting to pull the trigger on the other for fear of the other's reaction.

Although armed hostilities ended with the Korean Armistice Agreement on July 27, 1953, the ceasefire was not a treaty under international law and so a technical state of war remains.

Fears of communism had risen after the Second Red Scare, led by Wisconsin US Senator Joseph McCarthy, indirectly calling for a policy to limit Communist Threat: NSC 68.

[12] The Soviets boycotted the UN Security Council because the Americans had refused the entry of the People's Republic of China into the United Nations.

His beliefs in ceasefire and peacekeeping between the North and the South were cause for great conflict with MacArthur, who sought total war.

Trying to find a way to stop the people from moving, East German President Walter Ulbricht pressured the Soviet Union to help with Berlin and emigration.

Khrushchev wanted the Western Allies to leave Berlin or sign a separate peace treaty with East Germany.

The United States heavily condemned the Berlin Wall and responded by placing troops on the West German side.

That led to the iconic image of tanks facing each other at "Checkpoint Charlie," which symbolized the division of the eastern and the western parts of Germany.

[17] A prime example of brinkmanship during the Cold War was the Cuban Missile Crisis (1962), a 13-day conflict between the United States, the Soviet Union, and Cuba.

"[20] The crisis was caused by the placement of Soviet nuclear weapons in Cuba, an island that was within the US sphere of influence and launching distance.

[12] It focused on a philosophical deepening of American foreign policy to adjust to the changing international order, as opposed to the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, which had been too single-minded in their pursuit of victory in Vietnam.

[22] That move away from focusing solely on military buildup heralded 12 years in which the world experienced a kind of peace by the decreased tensions between the Americans and the Soviets.

[12] He effectively ended the previously-accepted agreement of mutually assured destruction by almost immediately increasing the pace of the buildup of American arms to an unprecedented rate.