Briefing | What’s the worst that can happen

The risk that the war in Ukraine escalates past the nuclear threshold

Disaster does not seem imminent but it does seem disturbingly possible

Mar 19th 2022|9 min read

TO A 16TH-CENTURY siege warrior, the art of the escalade lay in climbing up a city’s fortifications without encountering something unpleasantly hot or sharp. To the men who rewrote the rules of strategy for the nuclear age, the art of escalation was the process which, bit by bit, moved a limited war towards an unlimited one. As in sieges of old, the key was a ladder: a conceptual one where each rung both increased the level of the conflict and sent a signal to the other side.

This article appeared in the Briefing section of the print edition under the headline “Herman’s ladder”