If in order to prove that one is committed to a threat, or that one is in fact capable of fulfilling the threat, one must display evidence of the commitment or the capability to the other party, the evidence may be of a kind that necessarily yields information helpful to the second party in combatting the threat. To prove to an enemy that one has a potent weapon that can overcome his defenses we might have to demonstrate the weapon or some aspect of it, or provide technical knowledge to prove the weapon feasible; to do so may aid him greatly in preparing a defense against it.

XREF: This is the classic deterrence credibility paradox — the costly signaling problem, related to Schelling's work on commitment but with the twist that signaling can backfire by leaking capability information.

Thomas C. Schelling, The Strategy of Conflict, loc. 801