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brinkmanship

  (brĭngk'mən-shĭp') pronunciation also brinksmanship (brĭngks'-)
n.

The practice, especially in international politics, of seeking advantage by creating the impression that one is willing and able to push a highly dangerous situation to the limit rather than concede.


 
 
Word Origin: brinkmanship

Origin: 1956

How do you fight a war without going to war? After ten years of Cold War (1946) with the Soviet Union, that was a paradox we were still trying to resolve. But President Eisenhower's secretary of state, John Foster Dulles, had no doubts about it. "The ability to get to the verge without getting into the war is the necessary art," Dulles said in an interview early in 1956. "If you cannot master it, you inevitably get into war. If you try to run away from it, if you are scared to go to the brink, you are lost."

There was good reason to be scared. Both the United States and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics were armed and dangerous. The United States had tested its first hydrogen bomb in 1952, the U.S.S.R. in 1953. Both sides had long-range aircraft to deliver the bombs. Neither side was deterred by the fear of "nuclear winter" (1983), an idea whose time would not come for thirty more years. In classrooms, the best we could do for our schoolchildren was to hold "duck and cover" drills so they could practice shielding themselves from the flash and blast of a distant atomic bomb.

Not every American favored going to the brink. Former governor Adlai Stevenson of Illinois, twice nominated as the Democratic candidate to run against Eisenhower, criticized Dulles in a speech in February 1956: "No, we hear the Secretary of State boasting of his brinkmanship--the art of bringing us to the edge of the nuclear abyss."

That word brinkmanship was modeled on the "gamesmanship" of Stephen Potter's 1947 book, The Theory and Practice of Gamesmanship or the Art of Winning Games Without Really Cheating. The sporting and humorous connotations of the suffix -manship applied to such a serious subject imply that the practitioner of brinkmanship is playing with catastrophe. Though the cold war is over, high-risk politics are not, and brinkmanship remains a vivid word to describe them.



 
Political Dictionary: brinkmanship

Usually associated with the Cold War practice of the superpowers wherein either might precipitate a crisis involving a potential nuclear holocaust (‘going to the brink’) in the hope that the adversary would make concessions on the issue in question (e.g. the 1961 crisis over Berlin or the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis). By analogy the term may include any high-stakes political ‘gamesmanship’, particularly in international politics.

— Geoffrey R. D. Underhill

 
Politics: brinkmanship

The policy of a nation that pushes a dangerous situation to the limits of safety (the “brink”) before pulling back; an aggressive and adventurous foreign policy.

 
Wikipedia: brinkmanship
The handling of the Cuban missile crisis has been described as brinkmanship.
Enlarge
The handling of the Cuban missile crisis has been described as brinkmanship.

Brinkmanship is the practice of pushing a dangerous situation to the verge of disaster in order to achieve the most advantageous outcome. It occurs in international politics, foreign policy and (in contemporary settings) in military strategy involving the threatened use of nuclear weapons.

This maneuver of pushing a situation to the brink succeeds by forcing the opposition to back down and make concessions. This might be achieved through diplomatic maneuvers by creating the impression that one is willing to use extreme methods rather than concede. During the Cold War, the threat of nuclear force was often used as such an escalating measure.

Origins

The term brinkmanship was introduced during the Cold War by United States Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, who advocated such a one-upmanship policy against the Soviet Union. In an article published in Life Magazine, Dulles defined the policy of brinkmanship as "the ability to get to the verge without getting into the war".[citation needed] His critics blamed him for damaging relations with communist states and contributing to the Cold War.

Brinkmanship is ostensibly the escalation of threats to achieve one's aims. Eventually, the threats involved might become so huge as to be unmanageable at which point both sides are likely to back down. This was the case during the Cold War, as the escalation of threats of nuclear war is mutually suicidal.

Benefits

Brinkmanship became very important in United States foreign policy during Dwight D. Eisenhower's presidency. The American public sought to win the Cold War and also wanted lower taxes. Brinkmanship was a cheap alternative to fighting actual wars.

Dangers

The dangers of brinkmanship as a political or diplomatic tool can be understood as a slippery slope: In order for brinkmanship to be effective, the threats used are continuously escalated. However, a threat is not worth anything unless it is credible; at some point, the aggressive party may have to back up its claim to prove its commitment to action. The further one goes, the greater the chance of things sliding out of control. The chance that things may go out of control is a key element in providing credibility to this threat. i.e. Kennedy was not willing to start a nuclear war over the Cuban Missile Crisis, but he was willing to risk the start of a nuclear war which was a more believable threat.

The British intellectual Bertrand Russell compared nuclear brinkmanship to the game of chicken[1]. The principle between the two is the same, to create immense pressure in a situation until one person or party backs down.

References

  1. ^ Russel, B. W. (1959) Common Sense and Nuclear Warfare London: George Allen & Unwin, p30

See also

External links


 
Translations: Translations for: Brinkmanship

Dansk (Danish)
n. - legen med ilden

Nederlands (Dutch)
hoog spel spelen (m.n. politiek)

Français (French)
n. - art d'aller jusqu'aux limites du possible

Deutsch (German)
n. - Politik am Rande des Abgrunds

Ελληνική (Greek)
n. - (πολιτικοί) ακροβατισμοί

Italiano (Italian)
politica del rischio calcolato

Português (Portuguese)
n. - estratégia (f) de realizar ações arriscadas até o limite da catástrofe (Pol.)

Русский (Russian)
умение балансировать на грани возможного

Español (Spanish)
n. - política arriesgada o en la cuerda floja

Svenska (Swedish)
n. - konsten att föra en politik till randen av krig

中文(简体) (Chinese (Simplified))
边缘政策

中文(繁體) (Chinese (Traditional))
n. - 邊緣政策

한국어 (Korean)
n. - 일촉측발의 상태까지 밀어붙이는 정책

日本語 (Japanese)
n. - 瀬戸際政策

العربيه (Arabic)
‏(الاسم) فن أو سياسه اتباع سياسه خطرة لحافه الحرب‏

עברית (Hebrew)
n. - ‮הליכה על הסף‬


 
 

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Copyrights:

Dictionary. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2007. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.  Read more
Word Origin. America in So Many Words, by David K.Barnhart and Allan A. Metcalf. Copyright © 1997 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.  Read more
Political Dictionary. The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Politics. Copyright © 1996, 2003 by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved.  Read more
Politics. The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition Edited by E.D. Hirsch, Jr., Joseph F. Kett, and James Trefil. Copyright © 2002 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin. All rights reserved.  Read more
Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Brinkmanship" Read more
Translations. Copyright © 2007, WizCom Technologies Ltd. All rights reserved.  Read more

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