Brinksmanship was an approach to foreign policy championed by former US Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, who served under President Eisenhower from 1953 to 1959, during the height of the Cold War. The strategy involved pushing one's opponent (at the time, the USSR) literally to the brink of war in order to exact concessions. Similarly, the concept of massive retaliation, which centered on using enemies' fear of a devastating nuclear war as a deterrent from attacking the US or its allies, also served to bring the global conflict between democracy and communism to a dangerous face off that could have ended in tremendous levels of death and destruction
