The phrase 'would have escalated' is correct and usable in written English.
You can use it to indicate that a situation has been avoided, and that it could have become more serious if it hadn't been avoided. For example, "I'm glad we were able to resolve the issue without involving legal counsel - it could have escalated quickly if we had gone that route".
Nor was there any doubt that her actions would have escalated with each visit.
If they had been on the playground, James said, "something definitely would have escalated".
"It's hard to speculate why this would have escalated to a life-threatening event".
I'm certain many other officers in the department would have escalated the situation fast.
"If we had participated in these protests, violence, killing and vandalism would have escalated," the group said.
Such work would have escalated the total expense of the project to a level that the Association felt was inappropriate".
The final bill that emerged from the House and Senate would have escalating fines for multiple offenses: a second violation would carry a $250 fine, and a third offense would have a $500 fine.
The Westminster government and the DUP had warned that an unreformed system would leave Northern Ireland with its own welfare arrangements, which would have escalating costs and complexity.
And yet I am surprised that time and again videos are circulated on social media as evidence of police brutality--with not a single word about the fact that the encounter would not have escalated if the civilian would have simply avoided the above mentioned set of behaviors.
Jeff Greenfield, in his new counterfactual book "If Kennedy Lived" (Putnam), asserts, along with many other larksome predictions (the Beatles would have gone to the White House; Ronald Reagan would have got the Republican nomination in 1968), that J.F.K. would never have escalated the war in Vietnam.
"I felt like if someone would have gotten in the middle of everything it wouldn't have escalated as much.
