Description
This paper critically examines the ontological and political function of the “escalation ladder” metaphor. Originally popularized by strategic theorist Herman Kahn, the ladder reframes the unpredictable and catastrophic dynamics of warfare as a structured, stepwise climb - a series of 44 rungs, from "Local Crisis" to "Civilian Doomsday" (Kahn, 1965). The study argues that this dominant strategic conceit - which maps the chaotic and potentially existential risks of conflict onto a rational, spatial, and reversible ascent - performs a critical discursive function by domesticating catastrophe. By transforming a potentially terminal event into a series of incremental choices, it reduces existential dread into a procedural challenge. The vertical, spatial nature of the metaphor is key: it provides the illusion of a clear-cut distance between danger (high rungs) and safety (low rungs). This spatialization allows decision-makers to treat nuclear weapons deployment not as a descent into tragedy, but as a calculated, upward move in a strategic game. Moreover, the ladder fundamentally redefines responsibility. Instead of responsibility for the outcome (global catastrophe), the strategic actor assumes responsibility only for the choice of the next step. Drawing upon metaphor studies and engaging with Palti’s (2011) notion of “explosive metaphors,” the paper demonstrates how the ladder’s framework transforms the "unthinkable and ungraspable" nature of total war into a series of discrete, quantifiable, and conceivable stages. By imposing a false sense of linear progression and controllable thresholds, the metaphor obscures the inherent complexity and material irreversibility of conflict dynamics. The findings suggest that the ladder is not merely a descriptive tool but a performative security technology: its ubiquity in strategic doctrine legitimizes brinkmanship and rationalizes the potential for nuclear exchange by providing a cognitive map that substitutes ethical deliberation for technical management.
