By Paolo Falconio * –
This contribution analyzes the transformation of escalation from a contingent risk to a structuring principle of contemporary international politics. Through a comparative analysis of the main geopolitical theaters and reference to historical and theoretical models of international relations, the article argues that the global system is undergoing a phase of fragmentation lacking a shared security architecture. This condition fosters a self-feeding dynamic of deterrence, normalization of conflict, and weakening of diplomacy, recalling the metaphor of the “sleepwalkers” proposed by Christopher Clark for Europe in 1914.
Introduction: The Convergence of Global Crises.
In recent years, the international system has manifested increasingly evident signs of structural instability. The war in Ukraine, growing tension between the Russian Federation and the European Union, strategic competition between the United States and China in the Indo-Pacific, Japan’s rearmament, and the proliferation of interconnected regional crises outline a picture in which armed conflict no longer appears as an exceptional eventuality, but rather as a latent horizon of global politics (Mearsheimer, 2014; Walt, 2018). Escalation tends to configure itself as a structural horizon of global political action.
In this context, peace tends to be conceived not as an autonomous political objective, but as an intermediate phase between successive cycles of preparation, deterrence, and confrontation. It becomes a strategic parenthesis within a certain horizon of war. If the Ukrainian conflict is existential for Europe and Russia (for the former, the survival of community construction is at stake; for the latter, Russia’s role and the perception of strategic encirclement), and in the Pacific, competition with the US is not only geopolitical (understood as geographic containment of China) but systemic, multilevel, ranging from technological governance to a different market model alternative to Western capitalism, one can understand why the instruments for reconciling national interests have been reduced to an outlook of strategic sequencing aimed at postponing confrontation.
Escalation as Systemic Strategy.
Traditionally, escalation has been interpreted as a risk to be avoided through containment mechanisms and strategic communication (Schelling, 1966). However, recent evolution suggests a conceptual transformation: escalation seems to assume a deliberate function, employed to redefine power balances, test adversaries’ resilience, and consolidate internal political consensus. More explicitly, escalation is no longer merely a risk deriving from miscalculation, but a conscious strategy used to redefine power balances and for purposes of internal legitimation. This posture appears increasingly evident, and its transversality is concerning. It affects autocracies and dictatorships as much as democratic systems.
The European Union, initially reluctant and historically built as a peace project through economic integration, now finds itself immersed in a “dynamic of accelerated rearmament.” It is a vulnerable and threatened Europe, but this rearmament is not accompanied by autonomous strategic reflection. This shift is not merely tactical but reveals a profound identity crisis: Europe no longer knows how to think of itself except in terms of external threat and military response. Russia uses conflict as an instrument of regime survival and redefinition of its international status; China adopts a calibrated strategy of pressure and ambiguity to measure the credibility of American deterrence; Japan rearmed with an outlook of strategic survival; the United States, finally, oscillates between containment and extended dissuasion, in a context of progressive erosion of its global hegemony (Allison, 2017; Ikenberry, 2018).
These dynamics are not episodic but reflect a systemic and self-referential configuration. More clearly, these crises, precisely because they are systemic, escape the logic of regional conflicts.
Aggravating the situation, contemporary escalation is not only geopolitical but intertwines with climate crises, mass migrations, and growing inequalities.
In this perfect storm, technological transformations not only risk further affecting economic and social dynamics but become increasingly pervasive in the structure of war—consider only artificial intelligence applied to weapons systems. This is perhaps the most underestimated and potentially catastrophic element of the current situation. The introduction of automated decision-making systems in the nuclear and conventional chain of command further reduces the time available for human reflection, increases the risk of accidents, and makes the responsibility for decisions more opaque.
During the Cold War, there were several moments when only the prudence of individuals (Stanislav Petrov in 1983, Vasili Arkhipov in 1962) prevented nuclear escalations based on false alarms. With increasingly automated systems, who will be the Petrov of the future? And if decisions were delegated to algorithms optimized for “victory” in simulated scenarios, what space would remain for political decision-making?
Artificial intelligence applied to warfare is not neutral: it incorporates assumptions, biases, competitive logics that can accelerate escalation dynamics. All this occurs without real reflection on the underlying risks and they themselves become factors of instability.
The Return of the “Sleepwalkers” in International Politics.
Christopher Clark described European elites on the eve of World War I as “sleepwalkers”: actors aware of their own decisions but incapable of anticipating their systemic consequences (Clark, 2012). This metaphor is particularly effective for interpreting the behavior of current global powers. But if those elites had no historical precedents to foresee the carnage of global conflict, these elites have a complete map of possible developments and seem not to take it into account. In this context, the crisis of democracies assumes particular importance. If dictatorships and autocracies are authoritarian by definition, democratic elites seem to no longer respond to popular will and show a determination to follow the path undertaken despite domestic public opinion. This is not simple shortsightedness but something more complex: perhaps a form of cognitive paralysis in the face of complexity, perhaps a surrender to systemic logic that transforms every rational actor into a cog in an irrational machine.
International actors act as if general conflict were improbable while adopting policies that progressively increase its probability. The conviction of being able to control the spiral of escalation clashes with a historically documented reality: once initiated, security dynamics tend to escape the control of political decision-makers (Jervis, 1978).
In this context, deterrence transforms into a language of mutual threats, diplomacy is reduced to formal ritual, and politics is limited to technical management of the inevitable. It is a language now emptied of real political capacity, and this represents perhaps the most disturbing element of our time. It is the symbol of a vision of the future as inevitable and the de facto renunciation of transforming it.
The Normalization of Conflict.
The progressive acceptance of war as an ordinary instrument of international politics represents one of the most critical features of the current historical phase. Conflict is no longer conceived as an exceptional event but as a structural component of the global system (Kaldor, 2012). This is a theme I have already addressed in a brief essay called “The Consequences of War,” in which I described war as infrastructure of global order. Acknowledging this means recognizing the fragility of our concepts of peace, sovereignty, and justice. An operation that forces us to look at reality without veils, to understand that violence is not an exception but a constant risk inscribed in the dynamics of power.
This normalization produces cumulative effects: it lowers tolerance thresholds for the use of force, erodes international norms, and weakens multilateral mechanisms for dispute resolution. The main risk lies not exclusively in the explosion of large-scale conflict but in its progressive banalization.
An International System Lacking Security Architecture.
The current crisis cannot be explained solely through great power rivalry. It is also the result of the absence of a shared security architecture following the end of the Cold War. The order that emerged after 1991 configured itself as an incomplete hegemony, incapable of integrating emerging actors and producing truly inclusive institutions (Ikenberry, 2011). The West made the mistake of believing that its model could simply expand globally without encountering structural resistance.
The collapse of this arrangement was not followed by the construction of a new order. The result is a fragmented system characterized by competitive security logics, hollowing out of multilateral institutions, and opportunistic interpretations of international law.
Conclusions: Prospects and Risks.
The analysis suggests that the international system is not inevitably destined for collapse but is exposed to a growing risk of uncontrolled escalation. History demonstrates that systems enter crisis when powers can no longer distinguish between deterrence and provocation, compromise and surrender, prudence and weakness (Kennedy, 1987).
A reversal of this trend would require a political vision largely absent today: the definition of a new European security framework, mechanisms for structured management of competition in the Pacific, and a recovery of diplomacy as a central instrument of international power.
In the absence of such a qualitative leap, the global system risks proceeding, once again, like a group of sleepwalkers, incapable of recognizing that the chessboard on which they move is progressively shrinking.
In the background lurks thermonuclear conflict because in this madness, in which there are no innocents, the atomic weapon is no longer seen only as an instrument of deterrence but is increasingly perceived and conceived for its actual use. This unconscious logic of escalation management recalls Bergman’s *The Seventh Seal*: the knight plays a chess game with death, but each move, even if rational, progressively and inexorably brings him closer to the end.
We are still in time to reverse course, but to do so requires that diplomacy not itself be the grammar of war, but an instrument of peace.
Bibliography.
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* Member of the Honorary Governing Council and Professor at the Society for International Studies (SEI).
