Escalation

View more History, Politics, Society videos

noun

The act of increasing or rising: aggrandizement, amplification, augment, augmentation, boost, buildup, enlargement, growth, hike, increase, jump, multiplication, proliferation, raise, rise, swell, upsurge, upswing, upturn. See increase/decrease.

Definition: intensification
Antonyms: relaxation

noun 1. the use of successively more powerful types of weapons in war.

2. the development of conventional warfare into nuclear warfare.

3. the process of increasing armaments, prices, wages, etc.

See the Introduction, Abbreviations and Pronunciation for further details.

(DOD) A deliberate or unpremeditated increase in scope or violence of a conflict.

An increase in the intensity or geographical scope of a war or diplomatic confrontation. For example, during the Korean War, some Americans urged escalation of the war through bombing of the People's Republic of China.

It has been suggested that Conflict escalation be merged into this article or section. (Discuss) Proposed since March 2011.

Look up escalation in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Escalation is the phenomenon of something getting more intense step by step, for example a quarrel, or, notably, a war between states possessing weapons of mass destruction. Compare to escalator, a device that lifts something to a higher level. While the word escalation was used as early as in 1938, it was popularized during the Cold War by two^[1] important books: On Escalation (Herman Kahn, 1965) and Escalation and the Nuclear Option (Bernard Brodie, 1966).

In psychology, escalation is a change in behavior, usually from stable or acceptable towards unstable or unacceptable.

In corporate usage, escalation is an act of informing people on the next (higher) management level about a problem or a situation, to get their attention and help.^{[citation needed]}

See also

• De-escalation
• Cost escalation
• Conflict escalation
• Privilege escalation
• Irrational escalation
• Technological escalation

References

1. ^ Freedman, Lawrence (1993). The evolution of nuclear strategy (2nd ed. ed.). New York: St Martin's press. pp. 198–199. ISBN 0-312-02843-1. http://books.google.com/books?id=ruAxF8SBR3IC&lpg=PR6&dq=%22The%20Impact%20of%20Atomic%20Weapons%20on%20Strategy%20and%20Tactics.%22&pg=PA198#v=onepage&q&f=false. 

External links

• Herman Kahns escalation ladder

This psychology-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. v t e

This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)