Mutually Assured Misdirection - Public Research Brief

Can a strategy directed at frontier capability and interstate competition also establish who may authorize a particular AI-mediated action? This brief separates strategic deterrence from transaction-level authority. It argues that a control can be valuable at one scale without supplying the missing protection at another. The claim is a limitation of coverage, not a claim that international coordination is unnecessary. The underlying manuscript reads the Cold War analogy as an institutional proposal and examines the relationship between the actor being deterred, the target being protected and the event at which a consequence becomes possible. It distinguishes epistemic activity, such as searching or recommending, from protected effects, such as moving funds or changing an operational record. These are analytical categories used to test the proposal's scope. They do not establish that the proposed CCC alternative is unique or successfully deployed. This record is a substantive public research brief accompanying the full manuscript. The work is independent of AI Frontiers and is not presented as peer reviewed. Related author edition: https://highlandreflexivepress.net/research/mutually-assured-misdirection/#acquire Complete related manuscript: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23744315 . AI tools assisted editorial preparation and formatting; Tony T. Nguyen is responsible for the research claims.