Brinkmanship: A game of Increasing Risk

Abstract

A game is a situation of strategic interdependence: the result of a player’s strategies (actions/choices) depends upon the strategies of other people (one or many), who are responding consciously in the given scenario. The negotiation strategy of Brinkmanship is an essence of competitive edge in business, politics, and everyday life, if practised effectively. This paper covers the application of Brinkmanship as a strategic response in various situations, alongside examining the impact in different scenarios. The paper also analyses and highlights the importance of balance while applying the strategic move of Brinkmanship to avoid the serious risk of miscalculation and dangerous escalations, through various real-time case studies. The analysis also helps to explain other incentives which are offered by the brinkmanship strategy to the players/agents along with an advantageous outcome. This paper shall also discuss the characterization of optimal behaviour and decision making in conflictive scenarios among different players. Keywords— risk, brinkmanship, conflict, behaviour, trade-off, controlled loss, credibility, nuclear war, entrepreneurial brinkmanship, Nash Equilibrium, probabilistic situations, strategy, world peace, management, game theory