The shooting escalated the existing hostility.
The tech 1 escalated the caller to a tech 2.
After March 1968 American policy on Vietnam was all a retrograde operation, to use the military euphemism for retreat, punctuated only by Nixon’s temporary reescalations in 1970 and 1972.
Unlike crisis escalation, crisis termination is a two-directional process in which protagonists cautiously descend the escalation ladder while simultaneously guarding against possible undetected re-escalation by one’s opponent.