Mission creep

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Mission creep is the gradual or incremental expansion of an intervention, project or mission, beyond its original scope, focus or goals, a ratchet effect spawned by initial success.^[1] Mission creep is usually considered undesirable due to how each success breeds more ambitious interventions until a final failure happens, stopping the intervention entirely.

The term was originally applied exclusively to military operations, but has recently been applied to many other fields, making the phrase autological. The phrase first appeared in 1993, in articles published in The Washington Post and in The New York Times concerning the United Nations peacekeeping mission during the Somali Civil War.