What is the need for trust, or enforcement of promises? Specifically, in addition to threatening damage, need one also guarantee to withhold the damage if compliance is forthcoming; or does this depend on the configuration of "payoffs" involved? What "legal system," communication system, or information structure is needed to make the necessary promises enforceable?

QUESTION: This opens an interesting line: under what payoff structures does a bare threat suffice, and when is a promise to withhold damage additionally required? Worth tracing through game-theoretic examples.

Thomas C. Schelling, The Strategy of Conflict, loc. 40