As opposed to "defuse", I imagine?
That's fair enough for that exact usage, where the verb is being applied to the situation - but I'm not sure it doesn't make more sense to "diffuse the tension" (i.e., cause it to thin out and become less dense) than to "defuse" it. At the very least, the metaphor works well enough that I'd have had a hard time judging which of the two was the correct usage in that context - and that's me.
That's fair enough for that exact usage, where the verb is being applied to the situation - but I'm not sure it doesn't make more sense to "diffuse the tension" (i.e., cause it to thin out and become less dense) than to "defuse" it. At the very least, the metaphor works well enough that I'd have had a hard time judging which of the two was the correct usage in that context - and that's me.