Resolve Fairy!
By 
In the wake of the big Iranian hostage crisis brief detention, I spoke with Zack Beauchamp at Vox about reputation, toughness, and the US-Iran relationship:
What scholars have found is that when states try to send messages of strength, like these are supposed to be, other states just don’t understand them. That it’s very hard to send fine-tuned messages to other states: You’re just trying to say that you’re strong, but the other state may just think that you’re being an asshole. So to speak.
Trying to carefully calibrate a message that says, “We’re tough and resolute, but we’re not dicks,” is really hard for states to understand. There’s this incentive to lie all the time, on both sides.