But now we can have a model of a rational decider who responds to an estimate of the probability of being attacked not by an overt decision to act or abstain, but by adjusting the likelihood that he may mistakenly attack. One’s response to an increase in the probability of being attacked is to shift the criteria for decision that are used in the warning system in the direction of lesser likelihood of a failure to respond, and hence in the direction of greater likelihood of a false alarm that provokes one’s own “retaliation.” If each player’s response to an increased danger of surprise attack is to enhance his own proclivity toward inadvertent attack, the probability of each player’s attack is now a rising function of the other’s.

XREF: A strategic analogue of a positive feedback loop or arms race dynamic — echoes escalation spirals and prisoner's dilemma logics.

Thomas C. Schelling, The Strategy of Conflict, loc. 491