Conflict Escalation

Roles: trigger, escalation, belligerents, stakes, momentum, collateral-damage, resolution

The process by which a small initial provocation cascades into a disproportionately large conflict. The frame highlights the gap between cause and consequence, the accumulation of sunk costs and grievances that lock participants into continued escalation, and the point at which the original trigger becomes irrelevant to the conflict’s own momentum. Distinct from war itself: war is a state, escalation is the dynamic that produces and sustains it.

As Source Frame (1)

• Trust vs. Mistrust

Applied To This Frame (1)

• mythology → Trojan War