The ability of states to impose their wills on other nations by escalating the intensity and geographic scope of conflict is central to deterrence, conflict termination, and the achievement of desirable post-conflict status quos. Unfortunately, for at least two generations, uniformed officers and civilian policymakers have been taught to think of escalation in an exclusively negative light. This view, if it persists, may create real problems when it comes to not only pre-conflict deterrence but also during crises and conflicts.
Military escalation, in its various forms, has been present since the earliest days of warfare and includes both the actions that increase warfare’s intensity or geographic scope and their effects. These can range from an immediate action that affects the battleground to a long-term decision such as the use of manpower escalation in the form of conscription. The development of nuclear weapons brought the escalation of war to its most extreme level with the ability to destroy whole cities and possibly civilization itself.
Often, escalation in practice and during wargames and tabletop exercises is not a conscious, deliberate decision but rather the result of a series of unintended consequences. It is also the product of a complex set of dynamic interactions between competing stakes, limits, and objectives and, in some cases, revisionist powers that are willing to accept risk in order to overturn an existing order they find intolerable. In these circumstances, the offer of an offramp during a conflict can have disastrous in-game results.