Even a player whose own probability of “irrational” attack is known to be zero must consider that the second may attack not only irrationally but also out of fear that the first, fearing the second’s attack, may try to strike first to forestall it. Thus it does seem as though we might get a compounding of motives.

XREF: This is the classic security dilemma / first-strike problem from Schelling's The Strategy of Conflict and game theory — fear itself becomes the mechanism that drives escalation. Builds on: "Mutual suspicion can compound small incentives into preemptive attack."

Thomas C. Schelling, The Strategy of Conflict, loc. 471