The phrase 'a sharp confrontation' is correct and usable in written English.
You might use it to describe a tense and heated argument between two people. For example: "The discussion quickly escalated into a sharp confrontation, with both parties unwilling to back down."
Marikana reminded some of the 1960 police massacre at Sharpeville; suggested to others that poverty and division had survived apartheid; or foretold a sharp confrontation between capital and labor.
After a sharp confrontation with President Johnson during the Vietnam War, Mr. Loomis quit as director of the VOA The President had ordered American intervention into Laos and wanted it kept out of the news.
We're proud, not of the medical aspect of deafness, but of the language we use and the community we live in.' Now the couple are hoping to have a second child, one they also wish to be deaf - and that desire has brought them into a sharp confrontation with Parliament.
In recent months, advances in the North Korean government's nuclear weapons program have led to a sharp confrontation between the government leaders of the United States and of North Korea.
He said opposition was likely in the Parliament on other elements of the program, but he added, with calm understatement, "I don't think there will be an atmosphere of sharp confrontation".
The move provoked a sharp public confrontation between the two parties as the Republicans lost control of the chamber for two hours and were left to complain bitterly about what they called an unnecessary "stunt".
Pragmatism would lead him to avoid sharp confrontation with Indian Muslims, perhaps offsetting any trouble at home by a peace-seeking diplomacy with Pakistan.
Such sharp confrontation is unlikely to occur in the auto talks, even in the event of a strike.
But every American President from Truman through Carter believed, or acted as if he believed, that through some combination of firmness and restraint, of patient negotiation and occasional sharp confrontation, time could be bought that would allow the Soviet Union to evolve in such a way as eventually to make the Manichaean East-West struggle obsolete.
The Intel that Andy Grove built had enshrined sharp confrontation as constructive engagement, in the imperious and emphatic style of its chairman, for whom decisions were crisp, choices were binary and markets were won or lost.
The Iraqi report appears to set the stage for a still sharper confrontation between the United States and Iraq, with the ball effectively now back in the American court.
