Giving up defensive weapons is logically identical to exchanging hostages

Evidence

Actually, the hostage idea is logically identical with the notion that a disarmament agreement between the major powers might be more efficacious (and probably more subject to technical control) if it related to defensive weapons and structures. To eschew defense is, in effect, to make hostages of your entire population without bothering to put them physically into the other’s possession. Thus we can put our children at the mercy of the Russians and receive similar power over Russian children not only by physically trading them, with enormous discomfort and breach of constitutional rights, but also by simply agreeing to leave them so unprotected that the other can do them as much damage where they are as if he had them in his grasp. Thus the “balance of terror” that is so often adverted to is—if, in fact, it exists and is stable—equivalent to a total exchange of all conceivable hostages. — Thomas C. Schelling, The Strategy of Conflict, 315

Categorization

• XREF: Directly extends the reader’s Milgrom et al. private-judge/enforcement model — disarmament-as-hostage is a formal commitment device, the same logic as Godfather-bonds in The Godfather. Balances the reader’s own Gambetta/Milgrom mapping. — connects to: Mutual nuclear deterrence is a modern form of hostage exchange. — Thomas C. Schelling, The Strategy of Conflict, 545
• DEFINE: Defines the ‘balance of terror’ as a total exchange of hostages — a precise redefinition of a common term.

Related

• Mutual nuclear deterrence is a modern form of hostage exchange. (similarity 0.89)