The stark terror that may be inherent in even relatively minor contexts of disinformation underlines the necessity to impose an order on events, to punctuate their sequence -- a necessity shared by both humans and animals. If people find themselves in a situation so totally novel for them that past experience does not supply them with a precedent, they nonetheless punctuate it immediately, often without realizing it.

A simple example: a boy has his first date with a girl and she arrives twenty minutes late. Let us disregard the (very likely) possibility that he already has in his mind a rule regarding punctuality -- e.g., that people should be punctual, or that women are never on time, or any other such premise. Let us instead assume that the novelty of this experience, coupled with the belief that girls are superhuman, angelic beings, makes him see a law of the universe in everything she does, so that he will not mention those twenty minutes by word or mien.

By not commenting on her tardiness, he has let the first rule of their relationship be established: she now has the "right" to be late, and he has "no right" to complain about it. In fact, if on a later occasion he were to criticize her for always making him wait, she would be justified in asking, "How come you are suddenly complaining about it?"

What this trivial example shows is that it is as impossible not to punctuate an interaction as it is to construct a random series. Rules are bound to emerge, and especially in human interaction, any interchange invariably reduces the possibilities which until that moment were open to the partners.

Another example is the emergence of rules in a newly formed psychotherapy group. There, too, certain behaviors become rules merely as a result of their occurrence and uncontested acceptance (or uncontested modification) by the other group members.

In communications research, this phenomenon is called "limitation" and refers to the fact that every exchange of messages, however given, invariably narrows the number of possible next moves. In other words, even though a given event may never be officially mentioned, let alone officially approved, the mere fact that it happened and was tacitly accepted sets a precedent and thereby creates a rule. The breaking of such a rule then becomes intolerable, or at least wrong behavior. This is just as true for animals defining their territory as for interpersonal or international relations.

Spies are a case in point.
Their existence and activities are neither officially admitted by their own country nor officially sanctioned by their host country. But over a period of time a pattern emerges: both countries silently tolerate the presence of a specific number of "official" spies, usually referred to as military, economic, cultural or press attaches. And faithful to the principle "If you kick my spy, I'll kick your spy," any action taken by one country against one of these official spies is immediately reciprocated by the other country. In addition to these official spies, there is usually a large number of "unofficial" ones not covered by this tacit agreement who, when caught, can be kicked from pillar to post with impunity.

The superpowers' mutual electronic surveillance is another example. The more closely these specially equipped ships and planes can approach the territory of the other nation, the better the results of their surveillance will be. But how close is too close --- especially in a world in which territorial limits are still a matter of international dispute?

The unwritten but officially acknowledged rule appears to be: If a surveillance plane is shot down on its first approach to a particular area, the incident is kept quiet, but if it is shot down during the second flight on exactly the same route, this constitutes a serious international incident. Harvard economist and game-theory expert Thomas Schelling has described this interactional phenomenon:

We seem to have some understanding about traffic rules for patrolling bombers; there are apparently certain lines we stay on this side of, lines the Russians presumably can recognize, the crossing of which they can probably monitor to some extent. This is certainly a restraint that we unilaterally observe in the interest of reducing misunderstanding and alarms. As far as I know, the traffic rules are communicated, not explicitly, but simply by behaving in accordance with them (perhaps conspicuously in accordance with them) and possibly by having chosen the dividing lines in such a way that their significance is recognizable ... It seems doubtful whether this tacit understanding could be made much stronger by a written document.

In areas where spheres of influence between countries are not sufficiently defined and acknowledged, the situation is dangerously unstable and explosive, as Southeast Asia and the Middle East demonstrate. In such cases the contestants usually resort to what Hitler called "salami tactic": that is, the technique of creating one accomplished fact after another, carefully keeping them sufficiently small so that no single fact is quite important enough for the other side to risk an all-out conflict over it.