Talk:Brinkmanship

Complaint
This page appears slightly unprofessional. The first person to find the time should fix it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 172.195.144.203 (talk) 04:58, 25 May 2005

Frequent misspelling issue
This is incredible but many if not most speakers, even the most educated, are apt say "brinkSmanship", with the "s" added. The statement justifiying S&P's downgrade of the sovereign rating of USA included the frequent misspelling "brinkSmanship", as have recent issues of Newsweek and the daily beast. The error is so common that some dictionaries refer to it as an alternate spelling. 217.173.49.82 (talk) 13:39, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

It seems to me out of step with usage to call this a misspelling. The term is a recent coinage, as these things go, and a quick glance at Google Ngrams shows that, while "brinkmanship" was the original term, and has remained the most common, "brinksmanship" appeared shortly thereafter and has been in consistent usage ever since. Given the analogy with other words taking the -manship suffix ("statesmanship," "swordsmanship," "gamesmanship") it's easy to see why this usage caught on, especially since those terms are likely to be used in the political context, as opposed to ess-less -manship words like "penmanship." --unsigned comment by 174.53.191.97 23:50, 26 August 2012‎ 174.53.191.97


 * The idea that "brinksmanship" is a misspelling is absolutely mad, or at least an example of the worst kind of pedantry. "Some dictionaries?" The OED lists it as a US variant, and its US counterpart lists it as an alternate thus: "brinkmanship |ˈbri ng kmənˌ sh ip| (also brinksmanship |ˈbri ng ksmən-|) noun the art or practice of pursuing a dangerous policy to the limits of safety before stopping, typically in politics." People, if it's listed as a variant in dictionaries, it is not an erroneous spelling, for heaven's sake. I'm removing that wildly unjustified implication. O0drogue0o (talk) 05:46, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

Edited 14 April 2006
I stopped by the brinkmanship article and have made two changes; the first was to add a note that threats must be backed up at some point to retain credibility (under the 'dangers' heading), the second was to completely eliminate the 'types of brinkmanship' subsection.

I found that subsection to be irrelevant to this article, as it does little other than repeat itself and vaguely reference Kennedy. The section is pasted below for consideration (if you can make heads or tails of it, or find something useful in it, let me know) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 198.204.133.208 (talk) 17:03, 14 April 2006

Types of Brinkmanship
The escalation of wars of words, especially in international politics, is frequently referred to as brinkmanship. For instance, the Japanese history textbook controversies is an example of brinkmanship.

In game theory terms, Brinkmanship is a type of threat. As in all game theory threats, the question of credibility arises. Will you carry out the threat if I do not cave in to your desires? Note that some threats are so huge that they carry very little credibility. There is every reason to doubt that Kennedy would want to start a nuclear war which makes this threat less useful.

Brinkmanship is a game theory technique to make giant threats more credible. You do not threaten the certainty of nuclear war, but the possibility of one. As more and more people become involved in the crisis, it takes on a momentum of its own. The naval blockade of Cuba was an escalation that involved many more people into the decision making process. Also since a blockade is an aggressive action, the world moved further down a slippery slope where events could run out of control and result in events that no one wanted to happen.

By involving many more armed people in his blockade, Kennedy made his threat credible.

A union that threatens to strike (or a company that threatens a lockout) is likewise involved in brinkmanship. Neither the union or management wishes to prevent the company from earning money but the posturing and tactics to make their positions stronger progressively make the strike more likely to happen. Wingchild 5:03, 15 Apr 2006 (UTC)

Edited on 15 June
I tried and the article by cutting largish incoherent and IMO irrelevant segments. I think the article is more neutral and encyclopaedic now. Of course, there's still room to improve, but I felt my changes warranted the removal of the clean-up tag. Wempain 01:30, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Good edits, I just organized them, added a photo and a couple of links. --Inexplicable 17:43, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

Kennedy
Kennedy is suddenly referred to without the as simply "fat." Probably something was deleted that would have made it make sense. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.145.148.167 (talk) 19:37, 13 April 2006

Brickmanship and dictators + fascists citation
I found a citations proving that fascists and dictators often use brinkmanship, but I am fairly new to Wikipedia article editing and I do not know how to cite multiple sources, or even cite sources. Help? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Cowie1337 (talk • contribs) 02:52, 29 February 2008 (UTC)


 * I find the comment about "fascists and dictators" irrelevant without further explanation, and probably irrelevant regardless. -- tstock —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.255.7.109 (talk) 05:03, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

Neutrality, Original research, weasel words
An anonymous editor tagged this article with loads of tags. Was this vandalism? if not, these concerns need to be explained here. Sam (talk) 16:58, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Benefits
The benefits section is p;pathetic it says that it was an important part of the Eisenhower administration. That is it, it doesn't say why, it doesn't demonstrate the benefits it says nothing. BenW (talk) 21:02, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Origin
What evidence is there it was coined by Dulles - or even used by him? A reference I've found says that it was coined by Adlai Stevenson criticising Dulles.--Jack Upland (talk) 23:09, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

It is quite unlikely, so I've changed the article. Perhaps this can be researched further to get rid of the "probably". RFST (talk) 05:25, 17 October 2013 (UTC)

Either way, Stephen Potter was the originator of the "-manship" joke and deserves credit. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.164.3.208 (talk) 01:47, 24 March 2024 (UTC)


 * That's one plausible origin; alternatively, Potter and the originator of "brinkmanship" were both inspired by another use. In any case, without a citation it's a breach of our No original research policy. NebY (talk) 15:30, 27 March 2024 (UTC)