Steinberg and O’Hanlon ‘14 (James B. Steinberg and Michael O’Hanlon, *Dean of the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs and Professor of Social Science, International Affairs, and Law at Syracuse University; **Senior Fellow at the Center for 21st Century Security and Intelligence and Director of Research for the Foreign Policy Program at the Brookings Institution, "Keep Hope Alive: How to Prevent U.S.-Chinese Relations From Blowing Up," Foreign Affairs, 2014, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/asia/2014-06-16/keep-hope-alive, Date Accessed: 7-17-2019, SB).
One way to head off unnecessary conflicts is to reduce the malign role played by misperceptions. These can emerge from two quite opposite directions: from one side either perceiving a threat where none is intended or failing to believe in the credibility of the other side's intent to defend its interests. This means that the practical challenge for both Washington and Beijing is to dispel false fears while sustaining deterrence by making credible threats where they are seriously intended. The good news is that history and theory suggest four tools can be helpful in this regard: restraint, reciprocity, transparency, and resilience. Restraint is the willingness to forgo actions that might enhance one's own security but that will appear threatening to somebody else. Reciprocity is a response in kind by one side to the other's actions—in this case, a signal that restraint is being understood as forbearance(rather than weakness) and is being met with emulation rather than exploitation. Transparency helps allay fears that the other side's visible positive gestures mask hidden, more hostile intentions. And resilience provides a margin of safety in keeping crises from escalating and in making it easier for either side to try to start a virtuous cycle of restraint, reciprocity, and transparency. Fortunately for everybody, there are a variety of practical measures both Washington and Beijing can take in national security policy that can bring these tools to bear in increasing trust and reducing the risk of conflict.
