"Commitment" is to be interpreted broadly here. It includes maneuvers that leave one in such a position that the option of non-fulfilment no longer exists (as when one intimidates the other car by driving too fast to stop in time), maneuvers that shift the final decision beyond recall to another party whose incentive structure would provide an ex post motive for fulfilment (as when the authority to punish is deliberately given to sadists, or when one shifts his claims and liabilities to an insurance company), and maneuvers that simply "worsen" one's own payoff in the contingency of non-fulfilment so that even the horror of a mutually damaging fulfilment becomes more attractive (as when one arranges for himself to appear a public coward if he fails to fulfil, or when he puts a plate-glass window in front of his wares or stations women and children on the particular bit of territory that he has threatened somewhat implausibly to defend at great cost).

Thomas C. Schelling, The Strategy of Conflict, loc. 300