Strategic ambiguity
Saying deliberately little about what you would do, so that an opponent cannot plan around your response and an ally cannot take it for granted.
Often misread asConfusing it with having no policy, so vagueness is read as indecision rather than as a chosen position that has to be maintained.
How to see it
Commitment's mirror image, and it costs something
Sometimes the useful thing is that nobody knows exactly what would trigger your response. If your rule is clear, others can plan right up to its edge. If it is deliberately vague, they have to leave themselves a margin, and allies cannot take your cover for granted either.
The checkThe ambiguity is deliberate and it is paid for, because it also means you cannot deter anything precisely or reassure anybody fully.
Try itWrite a clear red line and ask what an adversary does just beneath it. Now write the vague version and ask the same. Then name what the vague version cost you, which is the deterrence you can no longer claim out loud.
Know these first
Easily confused with
Sources
- Schelling, T. (1960). Harvard University Press.
- Schelling, T. (1966). Yale University Press.
- Crawford, V. & Sobel, J. (1982). Econometrica 50(6), 1431-1451.