Brinkmanship (Cold War)

Brinkmanship is a term coined during the Cold War to describe the tactic of seeming to approach the verge of war in order to persuade one's opposition to retreat. It was an effective tactic because neither side of a conflict could contemplate mutually assured destruction in a nuclear war, acting as a nuclear deterrence for both the side threatening to pose damage and the country on the 'receiving end'. Ultimately, it worsened the relationship between the USSR and the US.

The term "brinkmanship" came from the political Hungarian theory of pushing the military to the brink of war in order to convince another nation to follow your demands. In an article written in Life Magazine, U.S. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles defined his policy of brinkmanship as "The ability to get to the verge without getting into the war is the necessary art." During the Cold War, this was used as a policy by the United States to coerce the Soviet Union into backing down militarily.

In the spectrum of the Cold War, the concept of brinkmanship involved the West and the Soviet Union using fear tactics and intimidation as strategies to make the opposing faction back down. Each party pushed dangerous situations to the brink, with the intention of making the other back down in matters of international politics and foreign policy, to obtain concessions. Nevertheless, in the Cold War both parties were confronted with devastating consequences since the threats of nuclear war were unmanageable in any situation. By escalating threats of nuclear war and massive retaliation, both parties were forced to respond with more force. The principle of this tactic was that each party would prefer not to yield to the other; however, one would simply have to yield since if neither of the parties yielded, the outcome would be the worst possible for both. The problem, however, was that yielding would result in being labelled as the weaker of the two and in the Cold War both the Soviet Union and the United States had a reputation to uphold to both their populations and their neighboring countries or allies, thus making brinkmanship utterly risky. Since neither country would budge, the only way to avoid mutually assured destruction (MAD) was compromise. Philosopher Bertrand Russell likened it to the game known as "chicken":

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