Nuclear escalation
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| Principles |
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Nuclear escalation is the concept in military theory that describes the process by which a conventional conflict changes into a nuclear war due to the use of nuclear weaponry by one or both sides of the participant states. It represents a significant and potentially catastrophic increase in the intensity and destructiveness of war between nuclear states.
The risk of nuclear escalation was a major concern during the Cold War, particularly for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the Warsaw Pact, as any conflict between the two alliances was seen as having the potential to quickly escalate into a nuclear total war, although the terrifying prospects of mutually assured destruction and potential civilizational catastrophe somehow deterred such escalation. Nevertheless, the nuclear arms race between the United States and the Soviet Union and subsequent proliferation of such weapons of mass destruction continue to have geostrategic repercussions even after the Cold War ended.