L8 - the gray zone Flashcards
the Fifth Column
= Trojan horse of the Spanish civil war: people on the inside of the city that would ally with forces on the outside that would make capturing Madrid easier
- fear of adversary using supporters to destabilize on the inside
Hitler incorporated the ideas to capture
- Norway scholar: beware of German embassies: it is a potential center of Fifth Column mobilization every German consulate is an armory, a danger spot, the privileged stable of a Trojan horse
- Dutch gov: want to neutralize inside threat (nazi supporters) to not make it easier for Germany to come
Franklin D. Roosevelt:
“Today’s threat to our national security is not a matter of military weapons alone. We know of new methods of attack.
The Trojan Horse. The Fifth Column that betrays a nation unprepared for treachery.
… But there is an added technique for weakening a nation at its very roots, for disrupting the entire pattern of life of a people. It is important that we understand it.
The method is simple. It is, first, a dissemination of discord. A group—not too large- a group that may be sectional or racial or political—is encouraged to exploit its prejudices through false slogans and emotional appeals. The aim of those who deliberately egg on these groups is to create confusion of counsel, public indecision, political paralysis and, eventually, a state of panic.”
(matches with discourse used now)
Anschluss (1938)
Preceded by 1934 coup attempt and murder of Austrian Chancellor Dollfuss (supported by German nazis helping their Austrian..)
Pressure campaign on new Austrian leader Schuschnigg
- German government supports Austrian Nazi destabilization, esp. violent protests, disinformation
- German threat of invasion
Refusal to appoint Austrian Nazi leader to replace Schuschnigg leads to invasion/annexation
- Germany sends army in but no assistance
Austria does not offer resistance
Despite Treaty of Versailles prohibiting union of Germany and Austria, no action is taken to restore the status quo, esp. by UK and France
-> anschluss seen as acceptable internationally
Czech Coup (1948)
Czech communists seize power in February 1948 ahead of May election (bc they thought they wouldn’t win)
Preceded by subversion and communist control of Czech Interior Ministry (‘conquest from within’)
Threat of Soviet army invading in support of Czech communists weakens resolve to oppose coup
- essentially bloodless
Marked a key change in European/US views of nature of Soviet expansionism – adds pressure for creation of NATO
- fear they could do it elsewhere
Salami Tactics
= taking of one piece at a time, taking opposition apart slowly
- rather than taking over in one full sweep
- reduces resistance as it progresses
“Join with non-Communists in a coalition and then proceed, by various methods, to take over. … What methods? “Salami tactics” … demanding a little more each day, like cutting up a salami, thin slice after thin slice …Take the banks for instance. First we requested only state control; later, the nationalization of only three big banks. In industry the same way: first we demanded state management of the mines; we gradually expanded this to the biggest machinery plants—and finally we shifted to nationalization.”
Hungarian communist leader Matyos Rakosi
definition - Gray Zone
“a realm of international relations between peaceful interstate diplomacy, economic activity, and people-to-people contact on one end of the spectrum, and direct armed conflict on the other”
- US National Intelligence Council assessment, July 2024
- Is this definition too broad, effectively encompassing most forms of modern conflict? = it is a wide space of activities
- Does it include terrorism, insurgency, humanitarian interventions, peacekeeping, etc.?
ISIS in Syria/Iraq? - Chinese island building in South China Seas?
(we have seen such tactics in the past, pre-cold war, during cold war and now since 2014 (Russia)) = new term, but old idea
Gray Zone = space for conflict
Gray zones tactics = things that can occur in the gray zone
Gray Zone / Hybrid War
= practically used interchangeably
meaningful difference: hybrid war can also refer to non-state actors
Type of conflict utilizing tactics below the threshold of traditional warfare to undermine an adversary and advance one’s own interests, usually disguised to prevent attribution:
- Cyberattacks
- Economic coercion
- Propaganda and Political warfare
- Sabotage
- Sponsorship of irregular fighters
- Military threats
However, many of these same tactics can also be used in traditional war!
main diff = military threats BUT NOT use of military force
!!!!he said something on the exam couldn’t hear it though 11.34
lost in translation?
Russia doesn’t use the term, it mostly conforms to Western conceptions
Russia prefers using the term non-linear war
China: non-war military operations
- problem in translation: not all gray zone tactics are military operations
For Western commentators, hybrid war is used by Russia against the West, whereas for Russia it is used by the West against Russia
- Russia: color revolutions (spread of democratic/popular revolutions) is all inspired by the west + considered hybrid war (essentially: there is no such thing as popular protest, it has to be orchestrated from the outside)
China e.g. in Taiwan: threatening but not actually invading it
the view from Moscow
“… it is clear that behind the term ‘soft power’ hides activities such as meddling in domestic affairs by organizing colour revolutions which in turn leads to a violation of the balance of power with catastrophic consequences for regions and the entire world”
- Aleksandr Fomin, Deputy Minister of Defence, 2018
conception of gray zone as a strategy
certain tactics towards a certain end
Pursuit of political objectives through cohesive, integrated campaigns
Employing mostly non-military or non-kinetic military tools
- i.e. military can assist gray zone efforts via intimidation and threats
- More likely use of paramilitary forces: e.g. Africa mercenaries from the Wagner group?
Strive to remain under key escalatory or red line thresholds to avoid outright conventional conflict
Moving gradually to objectives rather than seeking conclusive results in a specific period
What is the advantage? Cheap? More likely to work?
!crucial = avoid war: remain underneath the threshold, the red line of what is unacceptable and will lead to war
issue: it is a gradual strategy: you are eating away the enemy slowly = assumption it will take a lot of time
advantage = it is cheaper
disadvantage = probably less likely to work
remember the stability-instability paradox + escalation ladder
peace -> gray zone war -> conventional war -> nuclear war
when gray zone fails to achieve objectives and you still want to achieve the objective you move on to conventional war
(and this counts for all steps on the ladder)
challenge how to respond
how does Ukraine respond to Russia prior to 2022 (after 2014)?
- Ukrainians were positive if they would go against the rebels in the East, the Russian army would come in = they were really cautious in treating the rebels
how does NATO respond to Russia after 2014?
- OMG they did it in Crimea, what if they do it elsewhere (history suggests they will, e.g. Anschluss, Czech Coup WW2)
- respond in various methods
how have Vietnam, the Philippines, Taiwan and Japan responded to China since early 2010?
- China Gray Zone tactics incl. swarming fishing ships, the countries don’t want to go to conventional war bc they aren’t strong enough to win
!!strong legal element: if you spell out a red line after which war will come, it says everything below that is acceptable
a cold war by any other name?
“That is not a Cold War. It is a grey war. Permanently teetering on the edge of outright hostility. Persistently hovering around the threshold of what we would normally consider acts of war”
UK Defense Secretary Michael Fallon
cold war maybe was a Gray Zone? a hybrid war?
cold war: int’l conflict in which all means other than ovvert military force are used; a description of the state of East-West relations in the late 1940s-mid50s period. the use of a combination of economic warfare, propaganda, subversion and covert operations is now described as confrontation
covert action
“more muscular than diplomacy and less expensive and obtrusive than military force”
- propaganda
- political action (e.g. support anti-communist politicians)
- paramilitary action (e.g. for training)
(e.g. CIA cold war)
these are supposed to be deniable allegations (everything in the Grey Zone: put some diff between them and what they’re doing) =plausible deniability
1991 Intelligence Authorization Act:
Activities “meant to influence political, economic or military conditions abroad, where it is intended that the role of the United States Government will not be apparent or acknowledged publicly”
Cuba 1961-1962
US decided to support/arm Cuban exiles, send them off to try to control Cuba (failed)
(can’t invade the country, bc that would be seen as aggression)
!calculating your actions bc military force looks back internationally: invading another country
(if you use other means you can somehow get away with it)
e.g. the Congo
1960s crisis
US gov did not send troops: send mercenaries
= indirect measures to help fund mercenaries and armies bc they didn’t want to interven themselves
Propaganda Assets Inventory
e.g. Radio Free Europe
covert operations CIA with worldwide network for dissemination of propaganda
became public -> continued under public money (state department)
covert war vs traditional war
Lindsey A. O’Rourke:
- US attempted ten times as many regime changes via covert (rather than overt) action during the Cold War—64 covert regime change campaigns compared to 6 overt ones
- American-backed forces assumed power in 25 covert campaigns, whereas the remaining 39 covert missions failed in that goal
- Each administration during the Cold War engaged in at least 3 covert campaigns to replace the political leadership of another state at some point in their respective presidencies, and numerous covert operations continued across administrations.
e.g. US backed tactics
- election interference
- coup
- assassination
- democracy promotion
- dissidents
target states e.g. Bolivia, Dominican Republic, Congo, Syria, Angola, Liberia, France
Information Research Department (UK)
created within UK Foreign Office in early Cold War
at its height consisted of some 350 staff
Responsible for waging a secret propaganda war around the world, including manufacturing and spreading disinformation
(covert intelligence agencies, also in other countries)
Soviet/E. European Disinformation
KGB was really active around the world with ‘active measures’ (use that term rather than covert operations)
Active measures (aktivnye meropriyatiya) included a range of underground activities: media manipulation, the use of front groups, forging documents, influence operations, and ‘special actions’ involving various degrees of violence.
Purpose was to hasten victory in the Cold War ideological struggle by undermining and confusing the United States and its Western allies, splitting the Western alliance, sowing seeds of distrust and discord within democracies, and winning friends in the Third World.
- e.g. Czech intelligence disinformation campaign targeted at West Germany
- e.g. KGB sent to Bulgarian intelligence service trying to spin AIDS as biological weapons program designed by the CIA
!!disinformation to try to undermine trust/cohesion of the Western alliance + to undermine relations with African countries (e.g. the AIDS example)
active measures (Russia)
= Soviet term for a variety of overt and covert methods meant to influence the policy of other governments, disrupt their relations with third countries, or discredit opponents. the most common covert method is the dissemination of false or misleading information. overt active measures include official propaganda and the manipulation of diplomatic relations and cultural exchanges. covert active measures include disguised propaganda disseminated by non-Soviet sources; forged documents, clandestine (“black”) radio broadcasts; and the use of agents of influence and front organizations (such as the World Peace Council). active measures are primarily political, but military maneuvers and terrorism may also be used
- idea that Soviets and Eastern European allies were supporting terrorist groups in Western Europe: chaos as strategy to undermine govs
“Gray, it seems, is the new black”
2014-2022 started using the term gray zone and hybrid war, mostly for Russia but later also China
The term ‘hybrid war’ had been coined in 2006 to characterize a type of warfare that blended conventional and irregular elements, with Hezbollah as the model
- According to Frank Hoffman, Hezbollah combined highly disciplines, well trained and properly equipped regular units, adaptive guerrilla tactics in both urban and mountainous areas, high tech weapons and UAVs, and swift and effective information operations
- speech writer wrote about multidimensional warfare, but speaker couldn’t pronounce it -> became hybrid war
- like Three block war Iran: one block peaceful, next low scale peace w protection, the next warfare
The term was later adopted by NATO in 2014 following the Crimea annexation
“Gray zone” also becomes popular from mid-2010s onwards
Although it remains widely used within NATO, the term has fallen out of use somewhat due to the ongoing conventional war in Ukraine
- since 2022 sort of out of use, bc now more proper/full on war BUT STILL USING MUCH THE SAME TACTICS
Redlines
“The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all and consequently they agree that, if such an armed attack occurs, each of them, in exercise of the right of individual or collective self-defence recognized by Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations, will assist the Party or Parties so attacked by taking forthwith, individually and in concert with the other Parties, such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area.”
NATO Article 5
1948-49 example of coup in Czecho-Slovakia important for the design of the article
-> where to draw the line? at what point do we consent to use military force?
- prior to NATO treaty: cases of left-wing parties in western Europe + if one of those took over perhaps supported by SU -> would that give other NATO countries allowance to fight that gov
ART 4 talks about consultation if political independence of any of the states is threatened
vague red lines -> space for Russian propaganda
e.g. Russian red lines in relation to Ukraine: they are vague, and if they are broken there is no response -> have to create new line
popularity gray zone tactics
“The very ‘rules of war’ have changed. The role of nonmilitary means of achieving political and strategic goals has grown, and, in many cases, they have exceeded the power of force of weapons in their effectiveness. The focus of applied methods of conflict has altered in the direction of the broad use of political, economic, informational, humanitarian, and other nonmilitary measures—applied in coordination with the protest potential of the population. All this is supplemented by military means of a concealed character, including carrying out actions of informational conflict and the actions of special operations forces.”
Russian General Gerasimov + Russian leaders prior-2022 talking about non-kinetic uses of force (non-military tools and not crossing threshold of military intervention) in order to reach political effect
- idea that it was working really well
annexation of Crimea (2014)
!!considered to be the key example of Gray Zone tactics
Georgia war (2008) – South Ossetia/Abkhazia precedent
- efforts of Russia to support separatist movements in South Ossetia/Abkhazia
- 5 day war in 2008
Russian soldiers arrive in Crimea without any insignia or other identifying information on their uniforms (referred to as ‘little green men’)
- 2014 Russian soldiers arrive in Crimea without identification -> while it was clear they were Russian, but officially they weren’t
- similar to oct 1950: Chinese soldiers in Korean war not considered as Chinese army soldiers but as volunteers (gov didn’t want to be seen as officially entering the war)
- LEGAL AMBIGUITY: not legally going to war, but de facto what they’re doing
Annexation accompanied by cyber-attacks intended to sow confusion and delay response, especially of Western governments
- target Western targets to try to sow confusion to delay response
Many Western governments claimed they were taken by surprise, unable to confirm presence of Russian army
BUT … was this just an excuse for inaction?
- if Russia’s soldiers had identification on -> would it have made a difference? if they were officially Russian army soldiers?
- was it a convenient excuse for inaction? while actually they weren’t gonna intervene anyway (interpretation of the prof)
Would Western governments have responded differently if Russian soldiers’ uniforms contained insignia and identification?
response to Crimea
Crimea example raises fears in Eastern Europe (that it could also happen elsewhere, e.g. Latvia, Lithuania)
NATO uses term ‘hybrid warfare’ in its 2014 Wales Declaration
- Defines hybrid warfare as “a wide range of overt and covert military, paramilitary, and civilian measures … employed in a highly integrated design”
Gradual effort within NATO to focus on threat of ‘hybrid war’
Alliance slowly develops measures to deter and respond to these type of threats
Big fear within NATO is the experience of Crimea being replicated in the Baltic states – this becomes key planning scenario
Leads to formation of ‘Enhanced Forward Presence’ battlegroups in the Baltic states and Poland as a deterrent
- NATO military forces in Baltic states -> Enhanced Forward Presence: if you try something in any of these states, you have the entire alliance against you = international tripwire
- also e.g. battle against cyber attacks
- small scale effort to counter hybrid war activity, but esp since 2016 moved to focus on how to handle it if it moved to conventional war
response to the response - Crimea
If ‘gray zone war’ tactics fail, this leaves 3 options:
- Give up aggressive actions and accept status quo (get back to peace time status quo)
- Continue regardless and hope an opportunity arises to exploit (hope something eventually goes right, e.g. crisis in one of the countries that could be exploited)
- Escalate to war
As Ukraine and NATO bolstered defenses after 2014, thereby limiting Russia’s ability to achieve its goals, Russia continued its emphasis on gray zone tactics but eventually chose escalation
- 2022 chose to escalate to full on war
- theory: if they did this in 2022, they will probably also do it later but then to a NATO state
success/failure
Success often hard to prove although significant circumstantial evidence
(like deterrence success is hard to prove, only thing is that victims are trying to shield themselves)
- Were tactics useful getting Trump elected in 2016? They had some impact but hard to say how much.
- No guarantee tactics will work but hope is that an opportunity will arise that can be exploited
Failure due to inability to achieve objective, backlash, and/or escalation to war
- 2007 cyberattacks on Estonia lead to major investment in cyber-defense both in Estonia and NATO more generally
- ‘Little Green Men’ in 2014 leads NATO to focus on Russia again and build up E. European military infrastructure
- Crimea expands to eastern Ukraine – Russian-backed separatists create Luhansk/Donetsk People’s Republics – fighting inconclusive
- Ukraine continues military buildup – further efforts to undermine Ukraine’s western orientation fail – then contributes to decision for war
- 2014 important year: before that NATO would never have considered putting forces across eastern Europe
- reaction to 2014 effectively means that that certain tactics would not work in the future -> war 2022
(maybe rewatch a bit bc he went on outside the slides andI didn;t get everything 1230 ish)
influence via officially sanctioned mercenaries
Wagner Group (in Africa: the African Corps)
Russia kept gray zone activities going outside of Ukraine, most prominently in Africa: esp. in places like Mali (French operations came to a halt -> Russian Wagner group showing up)
final exam announcement
The exam will consist of 30 multiple choice questions + 3 short essay questions
Multiple choice questions will cover all topics (max 500 words each)
Essay questions will address the following themes:
- Russia’s large-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 = might be useful to read into it, esp the reasons why Russia invaded
- Gray zone
- Terrorism
(anecdotes beginning lecture probs not on the exam)
!!!focus on definitions of terms
multiple choice and open are 50/50
!!you do need to do the readings, esp. for the 3 topics
MC: not much emphasis on examples
!but for the open questions some examples might be useful so that you can include them in your answers
