Fixes that Fail
A dynamic in international relations that may create a spiral to war is the "fix that fails, illustrated by the diagram below. Fixes that fail constitute a classic dynamic that occurs repeatedly in innumerable situations and tends to take people by surprise. The "Fix that Fails" pattern is a problem that is "fixed" in a way that works at first but slowly generates an unexpected consequence that causes ultimate failure (the classic case being a medicine that cures the disease but kills the patient).
A symptom is identified, a fix applied, and the symptom is alleviated, but the underlying problem continues and may perhaps be worsened by an unintended consequence resulting from the fix.
One example is a country bedeviled by corrupt, feuding parties and an extremist protest group. External forces attempt to fix this problem by supporting the corrupt establishment parties in a domestic context where the extremist reformers are being cut out of the political scene. This "fix," shown in black in the diagram below, may work for a time, as external aid strengthens the establishment parties and enables them to form a government without the extremist group's participation. However, this development may generate two additional outcomes - frustration within the extremist group driving it to even more extremism and, if the other parties ignore the interests of those represented by the extremist group, popular frustration from poor governance that raises the extremists' popularity. These two trends in combination could result in rising extremism, a cycle of violence, and civil war.
See:
Reference 1
Reference 2