In this essay, the writer examines how threat assessments can become self-fulfilling prophecies. Firstly, he
explains the concept of the self-fulfilling prophecy which results from actors believing and expecting a purported
eventual state of affairs and then unwingly rendering it true via their corresponding aempts to manipulate its
emergence. Next, he analyses how states make threat assessments in the context of an anarchic system. Through
the examples of the Cuban missile crisis, Al Qaeda in Iraq and bioterrorism, he illustrates the role of perception and
misperception in transforming threat assessments into self-fulfilling prophecies. He then discusses the nuclear
domino theory and its association with Taiwan to exemplify how a vicious, self-fulfillment spiral can be negated.
Finally, the writer concludes that when caught in a self-fulfilling prophecy, it will be best to reflect on the
prophesied outcome and alter one's behaviour in response, so as to break out of the self-fulfillment cycle.