Threats require commitment, not comparative damage to both parties

Evidence

The fact that some kind of commitment, or at least appearance of commitment, must lie behind the threat and be successfully communicated to the threatened party is in contradiction to another notion that often appears in game theory. This is the notion that a threat is desirable, or admissible, or plausible, only if the reaction threatened would cause worse damage to the threatened party than to the party making the threat. This is the view of Luce and Raiffa, who characterize threats by the phrase, “This will hurt you more than it hurts me,” explicitly making threats depend on interpersonal utility comparisons. — Thomas C. Schelling, The Strategy of Conflict, 296

Categorization

• XREF: Directly extends Gambetta’s private protection market analysis and the reader’s Milgrom et al. private-judge framework — Schelling is here dismantling the intuitive ‘this hurts you more than me’ criterion for credible threats. — connects to: A threat to act is only credible if one is committed, not merely willing — Thomas C. Schelling, The Strategy of Conflict, 414; Limited war’s main function is signaling escalation risk, not local military gain. — Thomas C. Schelling, The Strategy of Conflict, 431; Deterrence rests on surviving retaliation capacity, not on existing destructive capacity. — Thomas C. Schelling, The Strategy of Conflict, 528 (+9 more)
• DEFINE: Explicitly defines and rejects the Luce-Raiffa characterization of threats as interpersonal utility comparisons.

Related

• Credible threats must attach penalties to observable acts, not intentions (similarity 0.83)
• A threat only coerces when the threatener has visibly left himself no choice (similarity 0.82)
• Threat credibility depends on the other party recognizing the retaliation formula (similarity 0.81)
• A threat must be credible and credible threats require commitment (similarity 0.81)
• Small-probability threats are superior to large certain threats in compellence (similarity 0.81)
• A threat to act is only credible if one is committed, not merely willing (similarity 0.81)
• Deterrent threats can be passive but compellent threats require commitment (similarity 0.81)
• Threats only matter when players can irreversibly change the game (similarity 0.81)
• Failed threats create joint incentives to undo commitments that parties cannot jointly undo (similarity 0.81)
• A credible threat works precisely because it need never be carried out. (similarity 0.80)
• Threatening a small risk beats threatening certainty when the enemy’s controllability is uncertain. (similarity 0.80)
• Protection demands are credible only when they come from established sources. (similarity 0.79)
• A threat backed by reputation cannot be unilaterally renounced by its target (similarity 0.78)
• A credible conditional commitment must combine both a promise and a threat. (similarity 0.78)
• A deterrence threat often hurts the threatener as much as the threatened (similarity 0.78)

Broader Connections

• Credible threats can be conveyed by action rather than verbal pledge #expands (0.80) — Thomas C. Schelling, The Strategy of Conflict, 34
• Sanctions support trust only while the threat remains unspoken and latent #corroborates (0.75)