Managing Escalation: Lessons and Challenges from Three Historical Crises Between Nuclear-Armed Powers

The return of great-power competition has highlighted the risks of conflict with nuclear-armed great powers. Such a conflict would entail escalation risks that the United States has not seriously considered since the Cold War. Using three historical case studies, the authors examine decisionmakers' ability to identify adversary thresholds and to apply this information to control escalation during militarized crises between nuclear-armed states.