ABSTRACT
This chapter outlines important policies and institutions implied by the normative imperatives. The required policies and institutions are of two basic kinds: those that deal with the substance of issues that are likely to propel opponents into confrontations with a high potential of drastic escalation; and those directed toward controlling the means of coercion and destruction employed in ongoing conflicts. Within societies, and international society is no exception, negotiation may or may not be heavily relied on as a method of dealing with intense violence-prone conflicts. Notwithstanding efforts to control the course of escalation once war starts, each crossing of a threshold reduces the chances for preventing further escalation up to the level of global holocaust. The most ambitious method of escalation control developed within the nation-state system—being premised on the obligation of all countries to preserve the security of all of them against transborder military aggression—is an effort to collectivize deterrence.
