Escalating threat levels themselves stem from structures of mutual mistrust.

Evidence

The problem is not how to rid ourselves of this knowledge. We cannot unlearn it. The problem is to stop it getting rid of us. The second reason is that the level of threat, and its erratic but rapid intensification, are themselves a product of obtrusive structures of well-founded mutual mistrust. — Diego Gambetta, Trust - Making and Breaking Cooperative…, 1268

Categorization

• XREF: Directly connects to the reader’s thesis: mutual mistrust as the structural cause of Hobbesian escalation, parallel to the doctor’s wife observing sighted chaos. — connects to: Intergroup threat effects are recursive and mutually amplifying between groups. — Walter G. Stephan and Oscar Ybarra and Kimberly Rios Morrison, Intergroup Threat Theory, 538; Political extremists on both sides sustain each other through reciprocal escalation.; Mutual escalation between armed parties can enlarge victim circles far past the combatants. — Leonard S. Newman and Ralph Erber (eds.), Understanding Genocide: The Social…, 133