Mexican standoff

At the same time, the parties are unable to extract themselves from the situation without either negotiating a truce or suffering a loss, maintaining strategic tension until one of those three potential organic outcomes occurs or some outside force intervenes.

Historically, commentators have used the term to reference the Soviet Union – United States nuclear confrontation during the Cold War, specifically the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962.

The key element that makes such situations Mexican standoffs is the perceived equality of power exercised amongst the involved parties.

The cliché of a Mexican standoff where each party is threatening another with a gun is now considered a movie trope, stemming from its frequent use as a plot device in cinema.

A notable example is in Sergio Leone's 1966 Western The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, where the characters representing each played by Clint Eastwood, Lee Van Cleef and Eli Wallach, face each other in a showdown.