This chapter applies localized peace enforcement theory to a subnational analysis of patterns of dispute escalation in Mali. In order to investigate whether the previous chapters’ experimental findings generalize to real-world operations, the chapter presents the results of two analyses of UN peacekeeping efforts to prevent the onset of communal violence in the central Malian region of Mopti. The first study leverages a geographic regression discontinuity design to compare dispute escalation on either side of the Burkina Faso–Mali border. The border splits similar areas into those “treated” with UN peacekeeping patrols (on the Mali side) and “control” areas without peacekeeping (on the Burkina Faso side). The findings indicate that peacekeeping reduces the likelihood of communal violence. The second study delves deeper into the data with an analysis of UN peacekeepers from different countries deployed to the same regions of Mali and uncovers further evidence in line with the predictions of the theory. Rather than comparing UN peacekeeping in countries with against those without a peacekeeping operation, the study compares UN peacekeepers from different contributing countries – Togo and Senegal – deployed to the same area.

To litigate or not to litigate, that is the question any Chinese companies operating in the United States long enough must contemplate. For American companies, litigation is nothing but an unavoidable business risk and often a vital competition strategy, routinely dealt with by legal and managerial professionals applying monetarized cost–benefit analysis. Such analysis typically incorporates attorney fees and other litigation expenses, potential reputational damage, time and human resource consumption, and the present value of expected litigation gains or losses. By contrast, litigation in China carries complex social meanings and is often avoided to preserve long-term cooperative relationships or to signal desirable attributes to uninformed third parties. When lawsuits do occur, they are often handled by stakeholders without professional legal assistance. Disputants consider a wide range of material and nonmaterial interests that are shaped by both formal institutions undergoing significant transformation and complex, entrenched social norms governing dispute resolution. Chinese companies immersed in these two disparate institutional environments approach legal disputes in the United States.

This chapter deals with public health and pandemic preparedness. It recognises the five stages of a new pandemic (detection, assessment, treatment, escalation and recovery). The chapter also deals with the issue of laboratory preparedness and the need to maintain a critical mass of laboratory and skilled staff expertise at all times in order to be able to respond rapidly and effectively to a new emerging pandemic.

Chapter 11 covers issues relating to litigation. Part A first addresses the right of exclusive licensees of patents, copyrights, trademarks and trade secrets to sue to enforce licensed IP against third party infringers, and the rules requiring licensors to be joined in such suits. The chapter next moves to contractual clauses that allocate responsibilty for litigation among the licensor and licensee (Ryan v. Graco). It next addresses contractual provisions relating to domestic and international choice of law and dispute resolution, including required arbitration and mediation (alternate dispute resolution). The shifting of fees and litigation expenses is covered next. The chapter concludes by considering special provisions germane to licenses that are entered into in settlement of litigation.

Some sexual killers choose victims in a particular age group. Three killers described here (Igor Irtyshov, Clifford Olson and Arthur Bishop) preferentially targeted children and young adults. Olson was an all-round career criminal who showed bisexual tendencies. Vladimir Vinnichevsky killed very young children, while Anatoly Biryukov sexually attacked and killed babies. Vasily Kulik tortured cats, and later showed a preference for killing children. His switch from young adults to children and elderly women followed damage to his head, which could have harmed his brain. Bishop gave an account of craving, ambivalence, escalation and fighting temptation. He illustrated the difficulty of trying to resist intrusive thoughts (something that psychologists call the ‘white bears effect’). For Irtyshov, the form of rape and choice of victim reflects the assaults that were earlier inflicted upon him.

Serial lust killing shows features of addiction, and some killers describe themselves as addicted. Comparisons of lust killing with such addictions as gambling, drugs and consensual sex reveal similarities. Following Robinson and Berridge, it is suggested that the motivational process involves dopamine and exhibits sensitization of incentive salience with experience of killing. Lust killing shows several common properties with other addictions: seeking to repeat the first ‘high’, escalation, increased wanting over time, gateway activities (soft drugs → hard drugs;rape → killing), ambivalence in engaging, stress increases the tendency to engage in the addictive activity, a sudden high often followed by an aversive condition, craving and a temporary correction of such feelings as hopelessness, lacking control and powerlessness. The urge to kill can suddenly occupy the conscious mind. Lust killers commonly consume alcohol in association with killing. Comparisons reveal some common properties between lust killing and war-time killing.

Some sex-linked killers feel a deep resentment against their mothers. This is often for their treatment in the family, as in harsh punishment and/or favouring siblings. In turn, the resentment fuels a corresponding hatred against women. John Crutchley was a suspect in a number of lust killings, but ws never found guilty. However, his sexual turn on was to abduct women and remove blood from them. Henry Lee Lucas exemplifies a particularly toxic development creating the circumstances for killing. Bobby Joe Long suffered damage to his head, which might well have involved brain damage and harmed his development. He appears to have developed a hatred towards women as a result of what he perceived to be his mother’s immorality. Carroll Edward ('Eddie') Cole shows a similarly based resentment towards his mother. Articulate heterosexual killer Edmund Kemper was harshly treated in his family, particularly by his mother.

Chapter 5 illuminates systematically – in a European, transatlantic and global context – not only the prehistory of the July crisis of 1914 but also the decisive longer-term changes in the international system and ground-rules and assumptions of international politics that led to the outbreak of the Great War. Challenging long-standing interpretations as well as the recently influential notion that European leaders acted like “sleepwalkers”, it underscores that what really proved decisive were two crucial developments: on one level, the final demise of the European concert as a key mechanism for peaceful conflict-resolution and the emergence of two antagonistic alliance blocs; and, on a more fundamental level, processes that led those who made the key decisions in and before 1914 to “unlearn” what was required, not merely to defuse continual crises at the eleventh hour but actually to manage the core systemic challenges of the age of imperialism and preserve peace more effectively. It thus seeks to show in a new way why by 1914 the escalation of a general conflict, which then widened into the First World War, had become all but unavoidable.

This chapter unpacks the strategic logic of interactions during a crisis involving cyber capable actors. It outlines the limits of coercion with cyber options for nation-states. After proposing a theory of cyber crisis bargaining, we explore evidence for associated propositions from survey experiments linked to crisis simulations and a case study of the US-Iranian militarized dispute in the summer of 2019.

In the second chapter the existing insights from the literature are treated. How have others thought about and conceptualised escalation and de-escalation? How do violent interactions between rebels and the state escalate? How can we measure escalation? The chapter sets out the methodology that is used in the book.

Chapter ten concludes the book. The main findings are summarised and discussed and some theoretical premises are formulated that could contribute to a further theoretical debate about (de-)escalation. The book concludes that escalation and de-escalation are far from linear, carefully calculated phenomena but more often highly path dependent, inadvertent, if not accidental and beyond any individual’s control. The chapter also translates these findings into considerations for policy and paints some avenues for further research.

Chapter 3 presents in detail the NVR manual for entrenched-dependence interventions. The opening stage is devoted to building the therapeutic alliance, reframing the problem in ways that allow for new options, discussing parental accommodation, working on the parents' narrative of total responsibility, explaining the need for a support network, and training on how to prevent escalation. This stage concludes with the presentation of a therapy roadmap. The second therapeutic stage includes the formulation and delivery of the announcement, and the constitution of a support group. The third therapeutic stage is the gradual and systematic process of de-accommodation, consisting in a series of gradual exposures to diminishing services, infringement of prohibitions and, if necessary, change of living arrangements. The conclusion stage is usually open-ended, offering parents the option of returning to therapy for a short period if crises arise.

In Chapter 2, we argue why parental NVR is well-suited to treating entrenched dependence. We describe why attempts at individual therapy for the adult-child or traditional parental counseling usually fail. These failures have different forms, such as: (a) the adult-child refuses therapy; (b) the adult-child accepts therapy, but entitled dependence persists; (c) the parents are advised to show unconditional acceptance, but the dependence remains unaffected; or (d) the parents are advised to be tough, but are daunted when they stumble on frightening escalation. We argue that parents are almost invariably the motivated partners, that they deserve to be viewed as clients in their own right, and that involving the adult-child would distract the parents and the therapist from their job. We elaborate some central insights underlying parental NVR, such as: (a) that the parents' narrative of total responsibility actually prevents improvement; and (b) that parental accommodation aggravates and perpetuates the problem. The chapter concludes with a description of treatment goals and of what changes can be realistically expected.

Chapter 4 examines the second macro-political factor in Rwanda’s path to genocide: democratization. Political liberalization simultaneously posed a threat to Rwanda’s incumbent elite and created a new political opportunity for challenger elites. The chapter shows how Rwanda’s move to liberalize – in line with the trend across Africa in the early 1990s – collided with its civil war with calamitous effect. The unfortunate coincidence of these two processes pushed Rwanda towards ethnic confrontation. The chapter explores how their interaction exposed a dark side to three processes commonly associated with political liberalization: pluralism, competition, and participation. Pluralization led to the expression of a broad spectrum of political interests and ideologies in Rwanda including the re-emergence of an ethnicist ideology. The chapter shows that this ideology had only marginal support initially. Moderation was ascendant at first and political parties sought cross-ethnic support. However, as the threat posed by the war escalated, this changed. The internal political competition created by multipartyism interacted with this external military contestation. In the face of weak constraints domestically and internationally, ethnic extremism gradually moved from the background to the foreground of Rwandan politics and society. Liberalization also increased political participation and a new class of challenger elites emerged at the local level, a radical sub-set of which would become mobilizing agents during the genocide.

Chapter 5 analyzes the thinking of Herman Kahn, who dared to think the unthinkable. It describes his "America," which again was that of the golden age of the middle class, but which also overlapped with the sense of malaise that plagued the 1970s. Like the limited war theorists, Kahn agreed military instincts needed to be curbed, and he attempted to counter uncertainty by arguing, largely in vain, that escalation itself was also a bargaining process with systematic waystations or steps embedded along its path. This chapter discusses his model of war’s nature, which, like those of Brodie, Osgood, and Schelling, priviledged war’s political dimension, though he gave policy more agency than did they.