Escalation shows misreading of conflict

Wars are rarely accidents; they are deliberate political choices. The current escalation involving the United States and Iran is not the result of inevitability, but of decisions made in Washington and reinforced by Israel's long-standing doctrine of preemption and force projection.

What is being framed as deterrence is, in reality, the initiation of a dangerous cycle of confrontation. Under the language of "precision strikes" and "calibrated escalation", the US and Israel have opened a pathway to conflict, gambling that controlled force can impose strategic outcomes. Yet such actions have historically produced the opposite effect — widening instability, hardening adversarial positions and closing off of diplomatic space.

What is unfolding today is not a measured exercise of power, but the predictable consequence of a strategy that prioritizes coercion over stability.

The fragility of this approach is already visible in the uneasy ceasefire that has emerged between Washington and Tehran. Rather than signaling resolution, it reflects a temporary pause within a broader trajectory of escalation.

This fragility is further exposed by Israel's continued military actions in Lebanon, where repeated strikes have resulted in civilian casualties, including women and children.

At the core of this misjudgment lies a persistent reliance on the logic of "game theory" — the belief that adversaries will respond rationally, that signals will be interpreted as intended, and that escalation can be carefully managed. This assumption reveals a fundamental misreading of the region. The US-Iran confrontation is no longer a contained strategic interaction; it has become a fragmented, multi-actor system involving Israel, Gulf states and a range of nonstate actors, each driven by distinct threat perceptions and strategic priorities. In such an environment, deterrence does not stabilize — it fractures. Each act of force generates multiple, often unintended responses, spreading escalation across actors and arenas.

Rather than controlling the conflict, the strategies pursued by Washington and Tel Aviv are accelerating its diffusion.

Within this evolving system, three conventional scenarios are often used to frame the trajectory of conflict. The first is controlled escalation, in which limited strikes are exchanged without triggering full-scale war. This model assumes equilibrium, where actors recalibrate to avoid catastrophic outcomes. Yet equilibrium presupposes a shared understanding of thresholds, and it is precisely this understanding that is eroding. The situation in Lebanon illustrates this clearly: What one side considers a separate operational theater is viewed by another as part of a unified confrontation. As these interpretations diverge, the possibility of miscalculation increases, and the risk of escalation grows.

The second scenario, a prolonged war of attrition, reflects a deeper asymmetry embedded within the conflict. Iran does not need to secure decisive victory; it needs to endure. Its strategy, shaped by decades of sanctions and external pressure, diffuses confrontation across multiple domains — military, economic and psychological. Through proxy networks, missile capabilities and dispersed infrastructure, the conflict becomes a contest of time rather than force. For the US, prolonged engagement generates political fatigue, economic strain and diminishing public support. For Iran, endurance is a structural advantage. Over time, this asymmetry shifts the balance of power toward resilience rather than superiority.

A third, more complex pathway emerges in the form of potential ground intervention. At first glance, limited or broader operations appear to offer strategic clarity — territorial gains and disruption of key assets. Yet such assumptions underestimate the structural realities of Iran's geography. Iran is not defined by open terrain; it is a mountainous fortress shaped by the Zagros and Alborz mountain ranges. These landscapes form the backbone of a defense system in which critical military infrastructure is embedded within hardened and concealed environments. Even if external forces were able to secure parts of southern Iran, such gains would remain strategically limited. The core of Iran's military capacity would endure, shifting the conflict into a prolonged and asymmetrical phase marked by rising costs and extended timelines.

The implications of such escalation extend far beyond the battlefield. The vulnerability of key maritime corridors, particularly the Strait of Hormuz, introduces a global dimension to the conflict. Even limited disruption can trigger volatility in energy markets, with cascading effects on inflation and trade flows. For export-oriented economies within the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, such instability exposes structural dependencies on secure supply chains.

It is within this broader context that the role of China becomes increasingly significant. As China is the world's largest energy importer and a central pillar of global trade, its strategic interest lies in preserving stability and continuity. Its emphasis on dialogue, economic cooperation and respect for sovereignty offers an alternative framework — one that prioritizes long-term stability over short-term coercion. In an interconnected global system, such an approach reflects not only principle, but necessity as well.

The deeper concern, therefore, is not miscalculation alone, but overconfidence in the very idea of control. Policymakers continue to act as if escalation can be managed, yet the system they have created is already moving beyond their grasp.

Wars rarely unfold according to design. They evolve, expand and entangle. In confronting Iran, the US and its allies may believe they are shaping events. The more enduring reality may be that they have initiated a process that will reshape the balance of power itself — accelerating the transition toward a more interconnected and multipolar world in which stability is achieved not through force, but through cooperation.

The author is an assistant professor at International Islamic University Malaysia.

The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.