Tripwire force

[3][4] Because the tripwire force is too small, by itself, to present an offensive threat, it can be deployed without triggering the security dilemma.

[7] In this way the United States would deny itself the political ability to abandon the conflict which would, in turn, guarantee a U.S. response up to – and including – the battlefield deployment of nuclear weapons.

[7] NATOs stance in the larger European theatre were also seen largely as a tripwire, whose primary purpose was to trigger the release of nuclear attacks on the Warsaw Pact.

[11] British military forces in the Falkland Islands (Isles Malvinas) prior to the Falklands War were intended to serve as a tripwire force, though were ultimately an ineffective one as they were so small and lightly armed that they didn't represent a credible signal to Argentina of UK military commitment to the islands.

[22] In 2015 Michael E. O'Hanlon theorized that a United States tripwire force could continue to be deployed in a hypothetically reunified Korea to meet American security guarantees to the region while avoiding provocation of China.

[23] According to O'Hanlon, a small enough U.S. military deployment in Korea, posted at a sufficient distance from the Chinese border, would not present an offensive threat to the PRC but would ensure the likelihood of American casualties in the event of a land invasion of the Korean Peninsula, thereby guaranteeing future American military commitment to any realized conflict.