During crises and conflicts, especially those between great powers, military escalation is a tool. Escalation, which can be defined as the increase in the intensity or geographic scope of a conflict, serves many functions, from communicating stake and will to demonstrating capability. It is a central component of deterrence, which is ultimately about the withheld threat of escalation rather than cost imposition alone.
Yet, national security professionals and uniformed officers almost reflexively dismiss the idea of taking actions or postures that could be seen as escalatory during real-world or simulated crisis or conflict. They may not understand that escalation can help them achieve the objectives they have laid out for themselves—for example, deterring aggression or defeating it and ending the conflict in a way that minimizes civilian casualties and broader collateral damage.
Escalation, of course, must be carefully calibrated and executed to avoid being either too hot or too cold. Whether it is injecting more troops or weapons into a battle or deploying unrestricted submarine warfare, escalation can cause immediate, visible effects on the battlefield and its potential to increase casualties. But some escalation is remote in time and effect, such as launching a new weapon development program or a campaign of strategic nuclear bombardment.
The United States has a powerful unused capacity to deter Russia from further escalation in Ukraine and beyond, but it will need to change its thinking about the nature of this risk. It will have to move away from limiting its thinking to traditional deterrence through superior force and instead consider how other instruments of national power—including escalation—can perform the same functions in a more flexible way, including by deterring the exploitation of a vulnerable ally like Ukraine by an enemy such as Russia.
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