Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun The practice, especially in international politics, of seeking advantage by creating the impression that one is willing and able to push a highly dangerous situation to the limit rather than concede.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun the policy or practise of pushing a dangerous situation to the brink of disaster (to the limits of safety), in order to achieve the most advantageous outcome; -- used especially of diplomatic maneuvers in crisis situations, and originally applied to the policies of John Foster Dulles under President Eisenhower.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun Pursuit of an advantage by appearing to be willing to risk a dangerous policy rather than concede a point.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun the policy of pushing a dangerous situation to the brink of disaster (to the limits of safety)

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

1956. From brink +‎ -manship.

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Examples

  • Dulles’s willingness to take risks, at least verbally, attached the word brinkmanship to him.

    Staying Tuned Daniel Schorr 2001

  • Dulles’s willingness to take risks, at least verbally, attached the word brinkmanship to him.

    Staying Tuned Daniel Schorr 2001

  • Dulles’s willingness to take risks, at least verbally, attached the word brinkmanship to him.

    Staying Tuned Daniel Schorr 2001

  • The stakes are high for both Harper and Ignatieff, and with the new polling numbers brinkmanship is inevitable.

    Archive 2009-01-01 2009

  • So maybe Apple's anticompetitive brinkmanship is actually the best thing that could happen for everyone?

    Android 2.2 Will Officially Support Flash 10.1 | Lifehacker Australia 2010

  • "Less belligerent in its audience pandering than its predecessors (less fart jokes, less homophobic subtext, and - thank Jesus - less squawking from Eddie Murphy), Shrek the Third may not give haters a migraine, but its lobotomized sense of comic brinkmanship is still without fun."

    GreenCine Daily: Shrek the Third. 2007

  • South Korean critics claim such brinkmanship is shortsighted.

    No Pain, No Gain? 2007

  • Unspoken, yet unmistakable in all the brinkmanship was the 2012 election campaign, still 18 months away, with the White House and both houses of Congress at stake.

    Debt talks crisis: Boehner, Obama trading blame 2011

  • Unspoken, yet unmistakable in all the brinkmanship was the 2012 election campaign, still 18 months away, with the White House and both houses of Congress at stake.

    Debt talks crisis: Boehner, Obama trading blame 2011

  • Unspoken, yet unmistakable in all the brinkmanship was the 2012 election campaign, still 18 months away, with the White House and both houses of Congress at stake.

    Breaking News: CBS News 2011

Comments

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  • brinkmanship pol. = Politik am Rande des Abgrunds; Politik des äußersten Risikos

    September 4, 2009