Symmetrical and complementary escalation: Understanding the dynamics of the Ukraine war

Abstract

Abstract The paper argues that the initial phase of the Ukraine war involved not only one but two escalatory processes, one following the pattern of symmetrical escalation and the other the pattern of complementary escalation. Symmetrical escalation is “conventional” conflict escalation, which was obviously occurring between Russia and Ukraine. However, drawing on a concept that was originally developed in the context of couple and family therapy, the paper argues that a second escalatory process developed between Russia and Western powers that followed the pattern of complementary escalation. In a complementary escalation, two participants take polarized positions on a spectrum of behavioral options and increasingly radicalize and rigidify in these positions, in a self-reinforcing interactional spiral, as when, e. g., one partner becomes increasingly accusatory and the other increasingly conciliatory, or one becomes increasingly responsible and the other increasingly irresponsible. The interactions between Russia and the West in the early months of 2022 can be described as involving such an escalatory or polarizing spiral, with Russia taking the position of “resort to war and reliance on brute force” and the West taking the position of “defense of international law and ban of war as a means of politics”. While both sides had leaned towards these positions before, they had done so only in the sense of partial and situationally flexible preferences, not in the sense of absolute and rigorously defended principles, and what turned them into staunch and uncomprisiming defenders of these principles was their mutual interaction and polarization. The paper presents a model that captures this dynamic, it discusses the problematic or even tragic role of international law in this process, and it underpins this with general system-theoretical considerations on the role of formalization and legitimation in social systems.