This is part three in a three-part series by Cipher Brief Expert and former Assistant Director of CIA for South and Central Asia Dave Pitts, who also serves as a member of The Cipher Brief’s new Gray Zone Group. You can read parts one and two exclusively in The Cipher Brief.
"In this three-part series, Dave Pitts brings conceptual clarity to strategic competition and conflict in the gray zone. As Dave notes, gray war is likely to be the primary mode of conflict going forward between America and its great and regional power adversaries, just as it was during the Soviet-American Cold War. Indeed, the new gray war has been underway for some time. Gray war encompasses a range of operations from non-lethal and lethal covert action to overt, indirect (proxy) war, and from cognitive warfare to cyber operations. It even extends into space. Through gray war, our adversaries seek to undermine our national will and capacity to oppose them, alter the geopolitical landscape to their advantage and undermine our global influence, compromise our critical national security systems, and steal our data and technology. Intelligence will be our first line of defense, but it is not enough. We must act. To date, America has been mostly reactive and on the defensive in the gray war. That must change."
— Dr. Michael Vickers, Former Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence
EXPERT PERSPECTIVE / OPINION — The question of how the U.S. can better manage the gray zone - that geopolitical space between peace and war where nations conduct activities to advance their national interests and weaken their adversaries without triggering a military response - is crucial to future U.S. national security. What the U.S. can do better in this space is something The Cipher Brief's Gray Zone Group is tackling this year as a priority. Here are some things we need to consider.
First, the gray zone is a primary component of current and future great power competition; we’re in a gray war already.
One of the first steps we can take is to recognize in practical terms the reality of the gray zone in great power competition. The U.S. hasn’t fought a conventional war of great powers in eight decades. In contrast, we face increasingly complex and consequential gray zone activity at home and abroad every day, and the pace is increasing.
Today, we are in a gray war—which I offered in a previous article as the systematic and coordinated use of gray zone activities by our adversaries to achieve the same strategic results as a conventional war, without the risks of direct conflict. We have to rethink, retool, and reorient so that we are as prepared for gray zone activity as we are for traditional conflict; we’re not there yet.
There are limits to traditional statecraft and war has high costs. For some countries, the gray zone is seen as effective, less resource intensive, deniable if needed, and an opportunity to weaken powerful adversaries without risking a military response.
China, Russia, Iran and North Korea believe there are more gains than risks in the gray zone and any risks they may face are acceptable. That is the underlying calculation of the gray zone. Conventional deterrence—such as the strong, experienced U.S. Military—which may constrain conventional military action, does not always translate into deterrence in the gray zone.
Given these considerations and the perceived advantages of the gray zone, our adversaries will only reconsider gray zone attacks against the U.S. when the risks of those attacks outweigh the gains. The U.S. will need to demonstrate consistency and resolve in the gray zone.
Second, develop and adapt capabilities for the gray zone.
One key challenge of countering gray zone activity is that the U.S. has to have world-class capabilities built for the gray zone. As just two examples:
We certainly have world-class cyber capabilities, but that expertise and those capabilities are concentrated in some organizations and not distributed across the rest of the government and the private sector. Even with these considerable capabilities, we have been unable to prevent penetration of dispersed and exposed critical infrastructure or to stop countless data breaches and technology theft, all significantly damaging to our national security.
Our national cyber capability, considerable as it is, wasn’t built for today’s gray zone and is now working to catch up. We certainly have the capabilities and expertise to be more effective in the gray zone.
The U.S. has strong expertise and experience in detecting and countering disinformation by foreign adversaries. Today, we lag behind in the development of a broader and coordinated cognitive warfare capability that can fully counter the cognitive warfare waged by Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea, all aimed at the U.S. simultaneously.
It’s a hard but fair question to ask if Russia’s and China’s cognitive warfare efforts have been effective in influencing U.S. opinion and policy on Ukraine, NATO, Taiwan, and the Middle East; if their actions have undermined our confidence in our institutions; and if they have created social turmoil and unrest to undermine our national security.
We certainly have the know-how and capabilities in this cognitive space; we just need to re-orient for the gray zone.
Join Pitts and other Cipher Brief Experts for a real-time conversation on defining the gray zone and the impact on U.S. national security led by former Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence Dr. Michael Vickers and Dave Pitts on Wednesday, January 22 at 1:30p ET. Subscriber+ Members, check your email for an exclusive invitation to register for this exclusive conversation. Not a member? We can help with that.
Third, a strategy of monitor-deter-respond with a focus on seizing the initiative.
Laying out a comprehensive approach to countering our adversaries in the gray zone is a task for diverse public and private sector experts, which I hope will take place, but I will offer a few thoughts. Enabling this approach likely requires leadership at the National Security Council level with the integrated support of the U.S. interagency community and the private sector.
Monitor.
“Gray Zone Intelligence” and shared situational awareness is important. Gray zone intelligence isn’t necessarily a real term, but perhaps it should be. Let me just use it to make a point.
Our ability to deter gray zone activity is enhanced by intelligence from the US Intelligence Community and our partners that allows the U.S. to act in advance—as evidenced by the U.S.’ use of “strategic declassification” prior to Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Knowing what steps our adversaries may take in the gray zone—before they take them—is the goal.
We should relook at our intelligence posture to assess if we have an appropriate focus on adversary gray zone activity beyond more traditional threats.
The U.S. private sector is on the front lines of U.S. global engagement in many ways and is often the target of adversary gray zone activity. It is also a significant force enabler. We likely need a new collaborative initiative to help the private sector better monitor and recognize potential gray activity against the U.S.
Deter and respond.
Deterrence begins with clear communications. We have to communicate clearly and convincingly to our adversaries about their gray zone actions. These actions are often violations of U.S sovereignty and law, and they pose a threat to our government, the private sector, our citizens, and our allies. We should provide clear warnings to our adversaries that the U.S. will respond to these activities and the responses will be persuasive. Of course, we have to back that up.
We can enable those communications by publicly highlighting our adversaries’ gray zone activities in advance when we know it, unless that exposes sensitive sources and methods, or following a gray zone activity when attribution is sufficiently clear. This is taking place now in some cases, but it should become more systematic and more calculated to ensure that narratives of denial by our adversaries do not prevail.
The U.S. requires an evolving range of effective responses to gray zone activity when deterrence fails. A range of options are already in play, including U.S legal, economic, and diplomatic power; combined responses with our allies; sanctions; and expulsion of officials. We need innovative thinking on additional options given the difficulty in persuasive deterrence and effective response.
We’ll certainly need public-private sector collaboration on the technologies, capabilities, and critical thinking necessary to support those efforts. We also need to coordinate closely with our international partners on responding to gray zone activity involving the interests of multiple countries.
From deterrence and response to seizing the initiative
We can protect U.S interest through persuasive deterrence and effective responses, but we can’t advance them. The best approaches are those that advance U.S. interests as we are mitigating gray zone activity against us. The gray zone is about both defense and offense as well as an opportunistic approach. For example:
The U.S.-led effort to help Ukraine defend itself against Russia was and is an opportunity to weaken Russia beyond Ukraine, to strengthen NATO’s posture against Russia, and to reduce Russia’s military power and global aggression that threatens the U.S and its allies—without the U.S. engaging in direct military conflict against Russia.
U.S. activity with international partners to defy Chinese efforts to redraw maritime borders in the South China Sea have been important in maintaining the status quo despite aggressive action by China. Beyond deterrence, this has expanded intelligence sharing, increased the capabilities of our partners, and bolstered U.S. standing in the region.
NATO is beefing up its presence in the Baltic Sea to monitor the presence and activities of foreign ships that might threaten undersea cables. A UK-led maritime force, made up of 10 nations, Operation Nordic Warden is using AI to more precisely monitor threats to undersea infrastructure, specifically Russia’s shadow fleet—aka Ghost Fleet—that also enables Russia to avoid U.S. sanctions.
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Fourth, rethink how we assess risk in the gray zone.
The gray zone is filled with real threats, many things that aren’t real, and outright deception. Cognitive warfare by Russia, China, and Iran floods the zone with false and manipulated information; fabricated organizations and events; persuasive but false national narratives; and calculated threats and intimidation intended to weaken our resolve, impair our judgment, and push us toward decisions that favor their interests.
This is the gray zone’s version of the “fog of war”.
Putin’s nuclear saber-rattling, countless redlines, and other threats may be real or they may be calculated cognitive efforts to persuade countries to make decisions favorable to Russia. At times, that has worked. China’s aggressive maritime actions around Taiwan and in the South China Sea may be bluffs, but they may change the status quo permanently if unchallenged.
The point is that we have to look at the gray zone through a different lens. That requires strong intelligence but also a much deeper understanding of the gray zone and the tactics employed by our adversaries. There are risks in acting and risks in not acting, but an ever-present risk is that we simply fail to fully understand what is happening around us in the gray zone.
Of course, the ultimate risk is that we or our adversaries miscalculate the impact of a gray zone activity or the impact of a response. Those miscalculations could begin an escalation toward conflict that is difficult to manage.
Miscalculations in the gray zone have consequences.
Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, which Russia assumed would go the way of its 2014 gray zone grab of Crimea with little or no real response by the U.S. and NATO, is a good example. Russia now finds itself in a protracted war with Ukraine and vulnerable to actions by the U.S. and its allies.
According to Ukraine, Russia has lost over 800,000 military personnel and a staggering list of armor, artillery, aircraft, UAVs, missiles, ground vehicles, and naval vessels. Using Ukraine’s data, Russian losses would form a military that would rival or surpass many militaries in the world.
Russia’s invasion led to a unified and now-larger NATO, and a long list of sanctions which have resulted in hundreds of billions of dollars in financial loss, diminished factory production and trade, reduced oil revenues, and loss of access to Western technologies. Russia has proved resilient in evading the impact of many of these sanctions, but this incredible damage to Russia’s national power is clearly not what Putin bargained for.
Iran miscalculated the response to Hamas’ Oct 2023 attack on Israel and misjudged the military capabilities of its surrogates, Hamas and Hezbollah, against a world class military, especially one with committed military support from the U.S. Hamas and Hezbollah are still capable organizations, but they are experiencing significant, likely permanent, setbacks.
Iran’s overall strategic position in the region has been weakened and its now-diminished air defense capability expose its energy infrastructure and nuclear program to attacks from Israel.
Join Pitts and other Cipher Brief Experts for a real-time conversation on defining the gray zone and the impact on U.S. national security led by former Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence Dr. Michael Vickers and Dave Pitts on Wednesday, January 22 at 1:30p ET.
Subscriber+ Members, check your email for an exclusive invitation to register for this exclusive conversation. Not a member? We can help with that.
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