Brinksmanship

Brinksmanship^[7]

A willingness to go to the brink may also strengthen your negotiating position. Brinksmanship is best understood in the context of war.

India and Pakistan have long been enemies. India is much larger than Pakistan and has a superior conventional army. In a conventional war between these rivals, India would almost certainly win. A war between these nations might not stay conventional, however, for Pakistan and India each have atomic weapons. Since both India and Pakistan would be devastated by an atomic war, how much protection does Pakistan get from its own atomic weapons?

A threat by Pakistan to attack India with atomic weapons if India invaded would not be credible because India would surely respond in kind to any atomic aggression. Pakistan would clearly be better off conquered by India’s army than decimated by its atomic weapons. Consequently, a rational Pakistan would never deliberately use atomic weapons if it thought that India wasn’t going to use them. Therefore, India would not believe that Pakistan would deliberately use atomic weapons in response to a purely conventional attack. So, how can Pakistan make its threat to use atomic weapons more credible?

Perhaps it could have loose control over its weapons. Pakistan could give control of each nuclear missile to a different general and put the missiles near the Indian border. Now, imagine that India attacks and its troops fire directly on a general who has control of an atomic weapon. Even if his leaders didn’t want him to push the button, the general, who might be facing imminent death, would be tempted to use the atomics anyway.

By having weak control over its nuclear missiles, Pakistan would be employing brinksmanship. Brinksmanship means deliberately taking a crisis to the brink of disaster. If Pakistan had limited control over its nuclear missiles, then any conventional war between Pakistan and India would risk becoming an atomic catastrophe. Brinksmanship makes a threat far more credible, because when you are at the brink mistakes might occur. By practicing nuclear brinksmanship, Pakistan could use its atomic weapons to effectively deter India’s conventional army even if India assumes that Pakistan would never deliberately use atomics.

Businesspeople, as well as military planners, can benefit from using brinksmanship. For example, a party to a labor negotiation might create the risk of an “unwanted” strike to increase his bargaining position.^[8] Imagine that a union contract is about to expire, and it would be devastating to both the company and union to not have a new contract. The union, however, wants to threaten the company with a work stoppage. This threat normally would lack credibility because a strike would harm the union. The union could, however, use brinksmanship to enhance the threat’s credibility. For example, the union could wait until the last minute to negotiate the contract so that failure might automatically result in a strike.

The union could also openly condemn management so that its workers might vote against an unfavorable contract even if the union’s leadership wanted to avoid a strike.^[9] This tactic would combine giving up control with brinksmanship. By deliberately making it difficult to accept a new contract, the union could enhance its negotiating position by credibly signaling that it couldn’t accept a new agreement that didn’t significantly increase employees’ salaries.

^[7]See Dixit and Nalebuff (1991), 292–295.

^[8]Ibid., 293–294.

^[9]Schelling (1960), 27.