Entrapment

In public discourse and commentary, terms such as entrapment, entanglement, roping in, and chain-ganging are often used interchangeably. Particularly, analysts have tended to conflate entanglement with entrapment. For the purposes of this research, it is essential to define and delineate between these terms. In this context, the scholarly work by Tongfi Kim is often used in the literature as a conceptual anchor point. In essence, Kim revised Glenn Snyder’s earliest definition of entrapment by arguing that entrapment is a narrower subcategory of the entanglement phenomenon. In a key explanatory part, Kim writes: ‘I define entanglement as the process whereby a state is compelled to aid an ally in a costly and unprofitable enterprise because of the alliance. Entrapment is a form of undesirable entanglement in which the entangling state adopts a risky or offensive policy not specified in the alliance agreement.

Source: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/european-journal-of-international-security/article/dangerous-allies-small-states-and-great-power-entrapment-risks/69E964B382378F6742A6BC6377BC9B9E