But all such efforts may suffer from the unwillingness of an adversary to engage in any preparatory steps. Not only may an adversary balk at giving signs of eagerness to come to agreement; it is even possible that one side in a potential war may have a tactical interest in keeping that war unrestrained and aggravating the likelihood of mutual destruction in case it comes. Why? Because of the strategy of threats, bluffs, and deterrents. The willingness to start a war or take steps that may lead to war, whether aggression or retaliation to aggression, may depend on the confidence with which a nation’s leaders think a war could be kept within limits. To be specific, the willingness of America to retaliate against local aggression with atomic attack depends—and the Russians know that it depends—on how likely we consider it that such retaliation could itself remain limited. That is, it depends on how likely it is in our judgment that we and the Russians, when we both desperately need to recognize limits within which either of us is willing to lose the war without enlarging those limits, will find such limits and come to mutually recognized acquiescence in them. If, then, Russian refusal to engage in any activity that might lead to the possibility of limited war deters our own resolution to act, they might risk forgoing such limits for the sake of reducing the threat of American action. One parachutist in our example may know that the other will be careless with the plane if he is sure they can meet and save themselves; so if the first abstains from discussing the contingency, the other will have to ride quietly for fear of precipitating a fatal separation in the terrain below.

XREF: Game-theory deterrence logic parallel to Schelling's own work on threats and commitments.

Thomas C. Schelling, The Strategy of Conflict, loc. 200