- Contemporary conflict escalation can no longer be adequately understood as movement along a traditional ‘escalation ladder’.
- Hybrid conflict and new technology create a more contested information environment and enable escalation to proceed through multiple, cross-domain and sometimes discontinuous pathways.
- To enable envisaging escalation in a non-linear way, the report offers an accessible visualisation of the escalation pathways framework that can support policy discussions and exercises.
Speed, attribution and nuclear wormholes
Escalation of international conflict often occurs suddenly. As a result, escalation management regularly starts before decisionmakers can agree on what happened, who was responsible, or what an adversary intended. Moreover, contemporary hybrid operations can obscure attribution and disrupt communication, while political and military signals as well as disinformation travel quickly across several audiences.
This report investigates how these conditions alter escalation pathways and how the Netherlands and its allies can manage the risks while preserving credible deterrence and freedom of action.
Three cases from the current hybrid conflict between NATO member states and Russia are used to examine how these dynamics manifest themselves in practice and to identify implications for escalation management. The report concludes by presenting concrete policy recommendations for the Netherlands and its allies.