Operating in the Gray Zone: An Alternative Paradigm

Operating in the Gray Zone: An Alternative Paradigm for U.S. Military Strategy.

Author | Editor: Echevarria II, A. (U.S. Army War College).

Recent events in Ukraine, Syria, Iraq, and the South China Sea continue to take interesting, if not surpris- ing, turns. As a result, many security experts are call- ing for revolutionary measures to address what they wrongly perceive to be a new form of warfare, called “hybrid” or “gray zone” wars, but which is, in fact, an application of classic coercive strategies. These strat- egies, enhanced by evolving technologies, have ex- ploited a number of weaknesses in the West’s security structures.

To remedy one of those weaknesses, namely, the lack of an appropriate planning framework, this monograph suggests a way to re-center the current U.S. campaign-planning paradigm to make it more relevant to contemporary uses of coercive strategies.

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