The supreme objective may not be to assure that it stays limited, but rather to keep the risk of all-out war within moderate limits above zero. At least this may be the strategy for the side that is in danger of "losing" a limited war. The less likely it is that the enemy's aggressive advances can be contained by limited and local resistance, the more reason there may be to fall back upon the deliberate creation of mutual risk.

Thomas C. Schelling, The Strategy of Conflict, loc. 431