The Arab Spring resulted in what came to be known as the "2015 refugee crisis", primarily in the EU. It was a paradigm shift for the EU's security strategy and for intergovernmental relations for the EU, Russia and Turkey. The study highlights the aspect of refugee flows by using the theory Coercive Engineered Migration, to understand strategic changes during the period 2012-2016. The study is a theory-consuming case study focusing on the case "refugee crisis 2015".The study combines the refugee aspect from political science with concepts from the strategy domain, deriving from war studies. This shows a course of events where the actor´s utilization of refugee flows has played a central role in an escalation duel.The conceptual development approach of the study shows the benefit of combining the theory of Coercive Engineered Migration, and how escalation increases the understanding of the case and broadens the strategic perspective. The study also claims to broaden the concept of escalation by including refugee flows.