The definition of “gray zone” is imperfect and not fully agreed upon. But it’s more important to work on the problem than to quibble over precise definitions—especially for something that poses real and immediate challenges for the United States, its allies, and the international rules-based order. While the Soviet Union, its Warsaw Pact allies, and even the United States and its partners operated in what we now call the “gray zone” during the Cold War, the available mediums and vulnerabilities have only increased with the globalization of trade and capital markets, as well as the proliferation of the internet and social media. Ironically, the strength of open and transparent societies also tend to provide multiple avenues and opportunities for competitors to operate in the gray zone.

—Arun Iyer is a nonresident senior fellow in Forward Defense and served in a variety of operational and operational leadership assignments covering Europe, the Middle East, and the Indo-Pacific in the US Department of Defense.

One can argue that activities in the gray zone have always been a feature of great-power competition. Proxy wars, destabilizing insurgencies, legal warfare (lawfare), and information warfare—by adversaries and allies alike—have been a feature of conflict for millennia. But the cost of conventional conflict in the nuclear era has grown too steep, and the risk of escalation too profound. As a result, nations seek to promote their national objectives through aggression conducted covertly, or with obfuscated attribution or justification, in order to achieve their goals.