Some aspects of deterrence stand out vividly in child discipline: the importance of rationality and self-discipline on the part of the person to be deterred, of his ability to comprehend the threat if he hears it and to hear it through the din and noise, of the threatener’s determination to fulfill the threat if need be—and, more important, of the threatened party’s conviction that the threat will be carried out. Clearer perhaps in child discipline than in criminal deterrence is the important possibility that the threatened punishment will hurt the threatener as much as it will the one threatened, perhaps more. There is an analogy between a parent’s threat to a child and the threat that a wealthy paternalistic nation makes to the weak and disorganized government of a poor nation in, say, extending foreign aid and demanding “sound” economic policies or cooperative military policies in return.

XREF: Connects to the reader's understanding of Schelling's broader deterrence theory and game-theoretic models of commitment and credibility. SEED: The parent-child/foreign aid analogy is a striking framing that could power an essay on how credibility operates in asymmetric power relationships. Builds on: "Deterrence is concerned with the exploitation of potential force."

Thomas C. Schelling, The Strategy of Conflict, loc. 32