brinkmanship

brinkmanship n. the pursuit of a dangerous policy to the limits of safety before stoppingI did a little more research on this word since at first I was thinking of Evil Knevil and various examples of pushing oneself to the brink of physical safety. However, Wikipedia clarified it for me as having a more political context, one of the best examples being the Cold War. So here's a little short animation that I find apropos...[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bIGk9qu2_iM]The best and most famous example is the Cuban Missile Crisis. I remember when I was younger discussing this with my parents and how insane everyone was thinking that an attack on the country was near.[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W50RNAbmy3M]Since I associate so many things with music, a good musical tag for this term is "99 Luftballoons" which is awesome in English or German...[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fdiUyMmVQ7E&feature=fvst]Or even as sung by Homer (my personal favorite).[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5mA4CkK_Deo]