Sabotage can be a means of physically damaging the government’s military or industrial production facilities, economic resources, or other targets. Participants at a recent UW/Resistance seminar (co-sponsored by U.S. Special Operations Command Europe and Joint Special Operations University) at the Baltic Defence College in Estonia observed that, based on the experiences of some former Warsaw Pact nations in their civil resistance–based post–Cold War revolutions, “resistance can be armed or non-violent, but both must be planned for.”21. 17 JP 3-05.1, Joint Special Operations Task Force Operations (Washington, DC: The Joint Staff, April 26, 2007), defines social movement as “a collective challenge by people with common purposes and solidarity in sustained interactions with elites, opponents, and authorities.”, 18 JP 3-05.1 defines social revolution as “a rapid transformation of a society’s state and class structures, accompanied and in part accomplished through popular revolts.”. Iran has displayed an impressive degree of sophistication in its ability to employ an array of proxies against U.S. and Western interests. In our era, unconventional warfare is more likely to take the form of a civil resistance movement, perhaps manipulated by foreign powers, that seeks to provoke a violent government response in order to destroy that government’s legitimacy in the eyes of the international community. Second, advocates believe that there is a valid role for the U.S. Government in encouraging and empowering these freedom seekers when doing so helps to secure U.S. national security interests. Sub-state actors (e.g., clans, tribes, ethnic and religious minorities) seek greater autonomy from the central government.”12 The complex nature of the future operating environment will often render traditional applications of the diplomatic and economic instruments ineffective or inappropriate. . The new name merely disguises the fact that we have been in the “grey zone” for a long time in Libya, Syria and Yemen and have not done too well there. Finally, the Army must recognize that there is a distinct difference between hybrid threats in the gray zone and open-warfare … 4 (July/August 2014), 94–106. A Gray Zone “win” is not a win in the classic warfare sense. Such was the case with the operation by the 5th Special Forces Group (Airborne) and Air Force Special Tactics operators in Afghanistan in 2001. Lieutenant
What followed this remarkably effective operation was more than a decade of challenging and costly large-scale irregular warfare campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq employing hundreds of thousands of U.S. and coalition troops. ), is a former Commander of U.S. Army Special Operations
. It is a highly discretionary form of warfare that is most often conducted clandestinely, and because it is also typically conducted covertly, at least initially, it nearly always has a strong interagency element. Democratic nations have a level of transparency and adherence to international law that precludes their involvement in disinformation campaigns. SOF must continually work to upgrade their training regimen and education curriculum in areas such as: To make a thorough assessment of a group and to be in a position to capitalize on the advantages of early observation and possible engagement, SOF should be capable of recognizing the conditions and early indicators of resistance. Other payloads could provide the capability to disseminate electronic messages via radio or television broadcast, in standoff mode, to target audiences in denied areas. Reading , Reading, Radical uncertainty, pandemic mitigation & participatory crisis management It means the front line is everywhere and no one is too unimportant to be a target. Milosevic finally announced his resignation the following day, bringing to an end a brutal 13-year regime. Advocates of UW first recognize that, among a population of self-determination seekers, human interest in liberty trumps loyalty to a self-serving dictatorship, that those who aspire to freedom can succeed in deposing corrupt or authoritarian rulers, and that unfortunate population groups can and often do seek alternatives to a life of fear, oppression, and injustice. Since the end of the Cold War, the world has gradually become aware of gray zone operations. It also provides insight into the importance of interagency planning, coordination, and collaboration; other U.S. Government departments and agencies are not only frequently involved, but they are also often in the lead. That might be due to the ambiguity of international law, ambiguity of actions and attribution, or because the impact of the activities does not justify a response. General Joseph L. Votel, USA, is the Commander of U.S. Special Operations Command. By supporting indigenous insurgencies, resistance movements, or other internal opposition groups, the U.S. Government can employ UW as a strategic tool of coercion, disruption, or to lead to the defeat of a hostile regime. There might also be a government-in-exile in another country—often as a result of being displaced by an invading and occupying power—which remains the internationally recognized government of the occupied state. 24 National Security Council memorandum, “Discussion at the 209th Meeting of the National Security Council, Thursday, August 5, 1954,” August 6, 1954; Eisenhower Presidential Library; Papers as President (Ann Whitman File), NSC Series, Box 5. These mitigations are focused on improving the security of systems via controls, such as patching vulnerabilities and multi-factor authentication, but they should be complemented with programs to increase user awareness of cyber threats. In some cases, UW can be used as a regime change mechanism, enabling an indigenous resistance or insurgent group to overthrow the existing government. Headquarters U.S. Army Special Operations Command. It is this indigenous mass that helps minimize strategic risk during Gray Zone operations: “Special Warfare campaigns stabilize or destabilize a regime by operating ‘through and with’ local state or nonstate partners, rather than through unilateral U.S. action.”8 As described in a recent RAND study, discrete and usually multi-year special warfare campaigns are characterized by six central features: Many examples exist of successful long-duration, low-visibility U.S. SOF-centric FID operations in Latin America, Asia, and Africa. Gary Anderson. Ottawa's medical officer of health has asked the province for the city to move into a grey-lockdown zone before the Easter long weekend, after a recent surge in COVID-19 cases. See Irwin, xxii, 280. While the term might be interpreted by some as a matter for the military, there are many aspects that require a coordinated national effort if we are to preserve our freedoms and interests. It is hardly new, however,” the National Defense University noted in a … It can be subtle or it can be aggressive. While “Gray Zone” refers to a space in the peace-conflict continuum, the methods for engaging our adversaries in that environment have much in common with the political warfare that was predominant during the Cold War years. Planners and operators most in demand in this difficult task will be those capable of thinking critically and creatively, warriors unhindered by the need for continuous and detailed guidance. What policy options does the United States have to respond to gray zone threats? Birmingham, Birmingham, Folk psychology, normative cognition, and the wide distribution of norms Despite efforts to characterise the cyber grey zone, it is surrounded by gaps in international law. Under certain circumstances, the prudent employment of coercive force, by empowering an indigenous opposition element, can force a target government to do something it might not otherwise be inclined to do. In these human-centric struggles, our successes cannot be solely our own in that they must be largely defined and accomplished by our indigenous friends and coalition partners as they realize respectively acceptable political outcomes. This strikingly successful unconventional warfare (UW) operation was carried out with a U.S. “boots on the ground” presence of roughly 350 SOF and 110 interagency operatives working alongside an indigenous force of some 15,000 Afghan irregulars.1 The Taliban regime fell within a matter of weeks. The risks for China may explain in part why Xi, for now, has opted for gray-zone warfare. Waging and countering this new unconventional warfare demands great sophistication and agility.22. The hybrid warfare term may be in vogue, and its continuing use is uncertain. The U.S.-indigenous irregular benefactor-proxy relationship, if successful, achieves mutually beneficial objectives (although there can also be divergent interests between benefactor and proxy). The Tallinn Manual is among the first, most long-lasting and widely recognised research initiatives launched and hosted by the CCDCOE. Gray zone conflicts are not formal wars, and little resemble traditional, “conventional” conflicts between states. With all of their tactical and operational successes, the Jedburghs’ greatest strategic contribution might have been in keeping the tenuous French Forces of the Interior coalition intact, making the Jeds truly warrior-diplomats. These methods aim to disrupt and disable an opponent’s actions without engaging in open hostilities. Soldiers Who Rode to Victory in Afghanistan, At the Center of the Storm: My Years at the CIA, Special Operations Forces Operating Concept, Special Warfare: The Missing Middle in U.S. In recognizing a need for doctrine updating, one Theater Special Operations Command commander recently observed: The conditions of 2014 are different than those of 1944, and the tools with which unconventional warfare is waged today differ greatly. Several of the Arab Spring revolutions have shown that such movements must be prepared in the event that severe government repressive measures drive them to abandon the nonviolent strategy and resort to an armed resistance campaign rather than forfeiting their cause. Probably the best prepared UW operations were conducted in the European theater, where Allied SOF benefited from an extensive and well-tested UW command and sustainment infrastructure, to say nothing of state-of-the-art training and equipment. The weapons of choice include disinformation, intimidation and cyber hacks. Among the better known units were the multinational Jedburgh teams. Despite the challenges involved, one finding of this research is that the United States can treat the ongoing gray zone competition more as an oppor-tunity than a risk: By seeking to coerce, acquire influence within, or Whether early U.S. support is covert or overt, if it reaches the point where lead-agency responsibility transfers from the Department of State or another government agency to DOD, early involvement by SOF can ensure that such a transfer is smooth and is executed at full speed, much like the passing of a baton in a relay race, rather than a dangerous and counterproductive stop-and-go affair. Soldiers Who Rode to Victory in Afghanistan (New York: Scribner, 2009), 347; and George Tenet, with Bill Harlow, At the Center of the Storm: My Years at the CIA (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2007), 225. Historically, the U.S. military has conducted UW primarily in wartime to assist indigenous resistance movements in defeating or causing the withdrawal of a foreign occupation force. The main reason for this is that movements choosing to follow a nonviolent strategy attract a much larger domestic support base than armed and violent movements. But both China and Russia have demonstrated that hybrid warfare, if … Even the Korean and Vietnam conflicts were fought under political constraints that made complete U.S. or allied victory virtually impossible for fear of escalation. In a wartime supporting role, UW operations can be a shaping effort in support of larger, conventional force operations, such as the very successful UW operations executed by U.S. SOF with Kurdish Peshmerga forces in northern Iraq during the 2003 invasion of that country. SOF provide several options for operating in the political warfare realm, especially those core tasks that are grouped under the term special warfare. The weapons of choice include disinformation, intimidation and cyber hacks. U.S. officials expect this competition to be played out primarily below the threshold of armed conflict, in what is sometimes termed the gray zone … Such special operators will be most capable of performing critical UW tasks under politically sensitive conditions, ensuring that they can serve, in the tradition of their Jedburgh predecessors, as true warrior-diplomats. Unconventional warfare continued to play a significant role in U.S. foreign policy during the early Cold War years, often in the form of covert paramilitary operations led by the Central Intelligence Agency. 2 See, for example, General Joseph L. Votel, statement before the House Armed Services Committee Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities, March 18, 2015; Captain Philip Kapusta, U.S. Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) white paper, “Defining Gray Zone Challenges,” April 2015; David Barno and Nora Bensahel, “Fighting and Winning in the ‘Gray Zone,’” War on the Rocks, May 2015; and Nobuhiru Kubo, Linda Sieg, and Phil Stewart, “Japan, U.S. Guerrilla warfare operations are carried out against military or other security forces to reduce their effectiveness and negatively impact the enemy’s morale. Eisenhower later wrote of the work of the Jedburghs and other SOE and OSS special forces: “In no previous war, and in no other theater during this war, have resistance forces been so closely harnessed to the main military effort.”15. This need still exists to achieve unity of effort across all aspects of national power (diplomatic, informational, military, and economic) across the continuum of international competition. Read more: This was the case during the prolonged U.S. UW campaign in support of Tibetan resistance fighters against Chinese occupiers from 1957 to 1969, and again with the UW operation in support of the Mujahideen in Afghanistan in their struggle against the Soviet 40th Army after its invasion and occupation of that country. Related to hybrid warfare, the term political warfare commonly refers to power being employed to achieve national objectives in a way that falls short of physical conflict. The Gray Zone is characterized by intense political, economic, informa-tional, and military competition more fervent in nature than normal steady-state diplomacy, yet short of conventional war. I will then talk briefly about what we have seen in Ukraine, Russian activities elsewhere, and how Russians appear to Nearly all the countries of Western Europe overrun and occupied by German forces in World War II established governments-in-exile in London. In the words of Gen. Joseph Votel et. Australia has taken great steps to protect against cyber attacks. But, as Max Boot of the Council on Foreign Relations observed, it has become a lost art and one that he and others believe needs to be rediscovered and mastered.6 SOF are optimized for providing the preeminent military contribution to a national political warfare capability because of their inherent proficiency in low-visibility, small-footprint, and politically sensitive operations. Such warfare is conducted in the “grey zone” of conflict, meaning operations may not clearly cross the threshold of war. Recent discussions, including last week’s speeches, focus on the newer aspects of these concepts – specifically activities in the information domain. JFQ. resident Senior Fellow at the Joint Special Operations University. U.S. officials expect this to play out below the threshold of armed conflict, in the gray zone between peace and war. Methods used by the resistance in meeting its objectives could include subversive activities such as mass protests, work slowdowns or stoppages, boycotts, infiltration of government offices, and the formation of front groups. One major success came during the 1980s with support provided to the Afghan Mujahideen that resulted in expulsion of Soviet occupation forces from that country. History has shown that no two UW situations or solutions are identical, thus rendering cookie-cutter responses not only meaningless but also often counterproductive. It is hardly new, however. America is entering a period of intensifying strategic competition with Russia and China. Resistance groups craft narratives that best convey the movement’s purpose and leverage key grievances of importance to the people. As demonstrated in the U.S. operation to support Afghanistan’s Northern Alliance in 2001, however, it can also succeed with relatively mature and experienced resistance groups, when a benefactor state’s support might be just enough to tip the scales in favor of a movement that has been largely stalemated. ), is a
A grey hat (greyhat or gray hat) is a computer hacker or computer security expert who may sometimes violate laws or typical ethical standards, but does not have the malicious intent typical of a black hat hacker.. Because most of our current adversaries choose to engage us in an asymmetrical manner, this represents an area where “America’s enemies and adversaries prefer to operate.”4. Unconventional warfare is fundamentally an indirect application of U.S. power, one that leverages foreign population groups to maintain or advance U.S. interests. In that regard, Senator Reynolds made a very important point in her speech last week: It is vital that we bring all of our sources of national power to bear on this problem, not just those of Defence. First came the operation to oust the Taliban regime in Afghanistan in late 2001, described at the beginning of this article. U.S. forces can likely have the greatest chance for success in Gray Zone UW operations when engaged early in a resistance movement’s development and continuously thereafter. Today’s joint UW doctrine recognizes variances of resistance that span the breadth of organized opposition from reform-oriented social movements17 to social revolution,18 to insurgency, and on to larger armed revolutionary movements. Throughout the Cold War, many hard lessons were learned in places as wide-ranging as Eastern Europe, China, Indonesia, Tibet, North Vietnam, Nicaragua, and elsewhere. The Growth of Grey Zone Campaigning. It might be a government engaged in ethnic cleansing or other crimes against humanity, or a state that willingly allows transit or provides sanctuary or other forms of support to terrorists. While the concept is fairly new, its effects and outcomes are often in the headlines today. Their goal is stabilizing or destabilizing the targeted regime. But if this domain does constitute a battlespace, it is starting to look very congested, with a steadily growing number of … 15 General Dwight D. Eisenhower, letters to the executive director of SOE and to the director of the Office of Strategic Services London, May 31, 1945. An invisible enemy is on the rise in a grey zone between war and peace. The Cold War was a 45-year-long Gray Zone struggle in which the West succeeded in checking the spread of communism and ultimately The success of that mission had enormous political and historical ramifications, beginning a chain of events that eventually resulted in the collapse of the Soviet Union and an end to the Cold War. The Gray Zone is characterized by intense political, economic, informational, and military competition more fervent in nature than normal steady-state diplomacy, yet short of conventional war. 5 George F. Kennan, “Policy Planning Staff Memorandum,” May 4, 1948, National Archives, RG 273, Records of the National Security Council, NSC 10/2, available at . For several reasons, SOF are ideally suited to contribute to U.S. support to such social revolutions. Instead, the People’s Liberation Army, China’s two-million-strong military, has launched a form of “gray zone” warfare. Nations such as Russia, China, and Iran have demonstrated a finely tuned risk calculus. Political warfare is a population-centric engagement that seeks to influence, to persuade, even to co-opt. Operations by U.S. forces include a highly successful UW campaign in an “economy of force” role in Burma and operations by stay-behind guerrilla leaders in the Philippines, where UW proved invaluable to U.S. land forces during the liberation of that country. More recently, U.S. SOF have played a central role in effective long-term FID efforts conducted in support of the governments of Colombia and the Philippines. . Accordingly, gray-zone warfare is neither an innovative or old phenomenon. It has raised the urgent question of how Tehran will respond, and stoked fears of a broader conflict. — Russia belligerently works to expand its sphere of influence and control into former Soviet or Warsaw Pact territory to the greatest degree possible without triggering a North Atlantic Treaty Organization Article 5 response. 3 Nadia Schadlow, “Peace and War: The Space Between,” War on the Rocks, August 2014, available at
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