"defuse a crisis" is an acceptable phrase in written English.
It is usually used when referring to a situation where someone works to prevent or reduce the intensity of a difficult, stressful, or dangerous situation. For example: "John was able to quickly defuse the crisis by calming down the angry customer."
Xi, with a glamorous first lady and a knack for the minor theatrics of diplomacy, has an opportunity to defuse a crisis in the making.
Where would each candidate be working right now to defuse a crisis that could require costly U.S. intervention, and what tools would he use?
He has recently offered significant compromises to the European Union and helped defuse a crisis in the former Soviet republic of Georgia.
Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey's moderate Islamist prime minister, flew to Brussels on September 23rd to defuse a crisis that he himself had triggered, when he suddenly withdrew a long-planned package of amendments to Turkey's penal code.
Mr. Carter has a track record with North Korea, having gone there in 1994 on behalf of the Clinton administration to help defuse a crisis with Mr. Kim's father, Kim Il-sung.
At one point, Mr. Obama cultivated a relationship with Mr. Morsi and for a while in November thought he could be an effective partner when he helped defuse a crisis in Gaza.
Defusing a crisis of this magnitude is not what the Bush administration envisioned when it came to power.
The last time he was there, in 2005, Oswalt led the Astros to their only World Series appearance, defusing a crisis that could have easily doomed them.
The deal defuses a crisis that was touched off Sunday when armed men supporting Mr. Abashidze refused to allow the president to enter Adzharia.
Certainly Mr. Bush's supporters aren't loudly sighing with exasperation the way liberal Democrats did when Mr. Clinton defused a crisis by co-opting the Republican position.
Yet the frenzied days and sleepless nights seem to have averted a major embarrassment for the administration and defused a crisis that threatened to upend relations between the two countries.
