Sonntag, 7. Juni 2015

The escalation factor

Conflicts usually consist of a sequence of destructive actions to the other side, where each one is a revenge for the previous ones by the other side. If act Y is a revenge for act X, the relative size of Y and X is called (by me) escalation factor. The Old Testament prescribed an escalation factor of 1: An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.
The product of the escalation factors of both sides is the conflict escalation factor.
if it is greater than 1, the war will escalate exponentially.
If it is smaller than 1, then it will deescalate, and eventually end.
Actually, the escalation factor will fluctuate over time.
Symmetric wars between states usually end after a while, when the king of one side is captured. (Although they often erupt time and again.)
Asymmetric wars may last forever. There may be a stabilizing mechanism at work, allowing the war to go on forever without becoming a total war.

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