On Escalation¶
Kahn, H. (1965). On Escalation: Metaphors and Scenarios. Routledge.
Cited by¶
5 citations across 5 artifacts.
Each citation links to the sentence it supports in the citing article.
Primes¶
- Escalation Dominance
- In military and strategic studies, the Kahn-and-Schelling origin, escalation dominance is the canonical setting — nuclear escalation ladders, conventional-force escalation, signalling at each rung.
This sourceOriginates the escalation-ladder framework (a definite ladder of rungs, ascent of which brings opponents closer to all-out war) and the concept of escalation dominance — prevailing at successive rungs of a conflict's intensity. Publisher catalog confirms the work and its escalation-ladder structure (ToC: 'The Rungs of The Escalation Ladder', 'The Nuclear Threshold', 'De-escalation').
Supported in partVerified against the work's full text
Publisher catalog copy confirms Kahn's escalation ladder with rungs and nuclear threshold, but not Schelling, escalation dominance, conventional-force escalation, or signalling.
“At each rung of the ladder, before the climb proceeds, decisions must be made based on numerous choices. Some are clear and obvious, others obscure, but the options are always there. Thermonuclear annihilation, says Kahn, is unlikely to come through accident; but nations may elect to climb the ladder to extinction.”
- In military and strategic studies, the Kahn-and-Schelling origin, escalation dominance is the canonical setting — nuclear escalation ladders, conventional-force escalation, signalling at each rung.
Domain-specific¶
Mechanisms¶
- Escalation Ceiling Review
- Each quarter the review re-examines whether the ceiling still fits as new abuse patterns emerge — the mechanism that keeps the top of the ladder a firebreak rather than a slope.
This sourceUses an escalation firebreak as a discontinuity intended to prevent the top of an escalation ladder from becoming a continuous slope.
- Each quarter the review re-examines whether the ceiling still fits as new abuse patterns emerge — the mechanism that keeps the top of the ladder a firebreak rather than a slope.
- Escalation Ladder Exercise
- The classic articulation of conflict as a ladder of rungs with distinct thresholds
This sourcePresents conflict escalation as an ordered ladder with qualitative thresholds and associated firebreaks.
- The classic articulation of conflict as a ladder of rungs with distinct thresholds
- Scenario and Wargame Review
- It applies the discipline of red-teaming to the escalation ladder — the intensifying steps of a conflict laid out as explicit rungs, an analysis Herman Kahn pioneered
This sourcePresents Kahn’s escalation ladder as explicit, successively more intense rungs of conflict escalation.
- It applies the discipline of red-teaming to the escalation ladder — the intensifying steps of a conflict laid out as explicit rungs, an analysis Herman Kahn pioneered
Verification¶
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Links previously used in the corpus¶
Before the registry existed this work was also linked 2 other ways.
- https://books.google.com/books/about/On_Escalation.html?id=FXT1ShC4oUAC ×2
- https://search.worldcat.org/de/title/on-escalation-metaphors-and-scenarios/oclc/569944 ×1
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