A military threat, sometimes expressed as danger of military action, a military challenge, or a military risk, is a concept in military intelligence that identifies an imminent capability for use of military force in resolving diplomatic or economic disputes. It is the ultimate escalation in international relations conflicts, and follows explicit diplomatic threat to use force as a means of coercion.
In general a military threat is identified when military personnel are detected conducting operations that can be interpreted as a phase that precedes combat, i.e. occupying positions, preparing weapons for use, and concentrating forces in an offensive manner.
Famous quotes containing the words military and/or threat:
“In all sincerity, we offer to the loved ones of all innocent victims over the past 25 years, abject and true remorse. No words of ours will compensate for the intolerable suffering they have undergone during the conflict.”
—Combined Loyalist Military Command. New York Times, p. A12 (October 14, l994)
“Where do whites fit in the New Africa? Nowhere, I’m inclined to say ... and I do believe that it is true that even the gentlest and most westernised Africans would like the emotional idea of the continent entirely without the complication of the presence of the white man for a generation or two. But nowhere, as an answer for us whites, is in the same category as remarks like What’s the use of living? in the face of the threat of atomic radiation. We are living; we are in Africa.”
—Nadine Gordimer (b. 1923)