Jonah here.

For long-time readers of the blog, you might have been aware that models of conflict and strategic escalation, specifically escalation ladders, have long been a fascination of mine.

My first piece on them in 2020 tried to explore how the spectre of grey zone warfare confounded traditional deterrence theory and demanded the use of the escalation ladder, built into an asymmetrical variant with reason and a little bit of intuition. My 2022 commentary on the early Russia-Ukraine crisis made liberal use of the escalation ladder, to explore and explain how evolving escalation ladders affected deterrence dynamics and strategic choices around the invasion.

This has culminated in my latest work, in which I propose a more coherent theory of escalation ladders that change across space and time, moving away from the ad-hoc applications of reason and intuition that governed my previous pieces.

To my delight, it has been accepted for publication under The Strategy Bridge, a non-profit open-access journal. This was part of the piece’s award as one of the Third-Place winners of the competition.

Read it here: Reconstructing the Ladder: Towards a More Considered Model of Escalation