The requirements for a successful outcome can analytically be divided into two parts. First there has to be discovered some “solution”—some pattern of action that reverses the trend toward mutual attack, and that constitutes a dynamically stable withdrawal to a less menacing alert status, one that yields neither side a dangerous advantage in the process, and that is within the physical capabilities of the forces concerned. The second requirement is that compliance somehow be observable, verifiable, and provable. We cannot carry out our part of the bargain unless we have trustworthy means for monitoring the other side’s compliance, and the same is true for them. Conceivably we would have an interest in cheating; but it is overwhelmingly more probable that we should wish in these circumstances for a cheat-proof monitoring system that we could submit to, so that if we did comply with our part of the bargain the other side would have no doubt about it. The problem is essentially one of contract enforcement.

XREF: This is classic Thomas Schelling game-theory/contract-enforcement thinking on verification and mutual monitoring — connects to trust, prisoner's dilemma, and commitment problems in cooperation more broadly.

Thomas C. Schelling, The Strategy of Conflict, loc. 575