Escalation is an important consideration in U.S. military activities, but U.S. Army doctrine and manuals do not provide focused guidance on escalation risks across the competition-conflict spectrum. This report contains insights from four prominent academic schools of thought on the actions, attributes, and dilemmas that characterize escalation and provides staff officers a vocabulary to describe potential options.
Authors
- Division
- RAND Army Research Division Strategy, Doctrine, and Resources
- Pages
- 28
- Published in
- United States
- RAND Identifier
- RR-A1933-1
- RAND Type
- report
- Rights
- RAND Corporation
- Series
- Research Reports
- Source
- https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RRA1933-1.html
Table of Contents
- Contextualizing Escalation 2
- Spectrum of Escalation 3
- Prominent Schools of Thought on Escalation 4
- The Security Dilemma and the Offense-Defense Balance 4
- Four Schools of Thought on Escalation 4
- Perceptions of the offense-defense balance may matter more than the reality especially when the objective reality is difficult to assess. 6
- The Bargaining Theory of War 7
- Psychology Organizational Dynamics and Bureaucratic Politics Approaches to Escalation 9
- By misrepresenting its capabilities concealing defects and conveying a willingness to bear costs a weaker state may be able to extract demands from a stronger adversary. 9
- Framing and Evaluation Phases of Prospect Theory 10
- Technological Advances and Cross- Domain Escalation 13
- Autonomous systems and cyber weapons may increase crisis instability by accelerating the speed of decisionmaking and creating attribution challenges. 13
- Conclusions and Implications for Practitioners 15
- What Is the Offensive Versus Defensive Potential of U.S. Forces 15
- What Signal Is Sent by U.S. Deployments and Operations 16
- The controlled revelation of information can facilitate the peaceful resolution of disputes deescalation of crises and management of conflict. 16
- Are the Operational Effects or Strategic Meaning of a Novel Capability Mutually Understood 17
- How May Friendly or Adversarial Decisionmakers Behave in Nonrational Ways 17
- Notes 19
- Bibliography 23
- Acknowledgments 27
