If inadvertent escalation is not occurring, it may be because brinkmanship tactics are successfully coercing states into backing down before inadvertent escalation can occur. This chapter assesses this possibility, asking the empirical question, has brinkmanship helped nuclear coercion succeed? To evaluate this question, it examines all cases of successful nuclear coercion, from two separate data sets of nuclear coercion success. It finds that brinkmanship has never helped nuclear coercion succeed: There are no nuclear crises in which one side deliberately engaged in brinkmanship, and the other side backed down because it feared inadvertent escalation to war. To the contrary, nuclear crisis participants routinely act to reduce inadvertent escalation risks. The only partial exception is the Cuban Missile Crisis, in which fears of inadvertent escalation helped push Moscow to move toward a settlement. However, this is only a partial exception, as Washington did not deliberately create risks of inadvertent escalation (i.e., it was not engaging in a policy of brinkmanship), Moscow moved to settle also because of fears of deliberate American escalation, and the crisis outcome is better framed as a compromise rather than American diplomatic victory.