Policy of deliberate ambiguity

A policy of deliberate ambiguity (also known as a policy of strategic ambiguity, strategic uncertainty) is the practice by a country of being intentionally ambiguous on certain aspects of its foreign policy or whether it possesses certain weapons of mass destruction. It may be useful if the country has contrary foreign and domestic policy goals or if it wants to take advantage of risk aversion to abet a deterrence strategy. Such a policy can be very risky as it may cause misinterpretation of a nation's intentions, leading to actions that contradict that nation's wishes.

Examples

Beijing and Taipei

Iraq

Israel

Russia

United Kingdom

United States

East and West Germany

After West Germany gave up its "Hallstein Doctrine" of ending diplomatic relations with any country recognizing East Germany (thus implicitly following a "one Germany policy"), West Germany turned to a policy of de facto recognizing East Germany in the 1970s, despite still maintaining several policies in accordance with the legal fiction of there being only one Germany. East German citizens were for instance treated as (West) German citizens upon arrival in West Germany and exports to the GDR were treated as if they were domestic trade. Thus creating a deliberately ambiguous policy that reconciled the demand by the rest of the world for West Germany to acknowledge the existence of the GDR and the desire by the vast majority of West German politicians to not recognize German partition as permanent.

See also

References

Articles

Eisenberg, Eric M (2007), Strategic ambiguities: Essays on communication, organization, and identity, Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage .

External links

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