Concurrently, Australia’s regional influence is degraded through reduced aid and military investment-the consequence of falling Australian GDP driven by reduced Musorian resource, tourism and education demand, combined with rampant state-sponsored cybercrime. Musoria moves to replace Australia as the security partner of choice-including increased presence of naval and air capabilities and the donation of patrol craft, small arms and secure radios.Īustralian awareness of the Musorian grey-zone campaign is weakened by a lack of integration across different departments and no central body responsible for identifying or countering grey zone campaigns. Public support is cultivated through free (but manipulated) internet satellite access as appeasement for a co-orbital manoeuvre that destroys the Australian-provided satellite services. Musoria subverts the political system through bribery, selective awarding of local contracts and political campaign contributions. Musoria uses a regional infrastructure fund to build and gain exclusive access to key infrastructure, including a dual-use port. The campaign has initiatives throughout the region but focuses on a certain Pacific Island country that seems most vulnerable to elite cultivation. In response, Musoria initiates a campaign to gain exclusive access to the largest tuna stocks in the world-located in the South West Pacific. Much of Asia lacks access to the protein critical to their diets. Unopposed Fishery in the South West Pacificīy the late 2020s, over-fishing and environmental damage destroys the aquatic food chain in the South and East China Seas. covert and military forces and training,.The ADF can contribute niche capabilities to counter grey-zone activities such as:.contributing to counter grey-zone campaign planning (and training other agencies in campaign planning).situational understanding through intelligence, and.The ADF can support whole-of government counter grey-zone activities by contributing to:.The ADF should improve its capacity to counter grey-zone activities by investments in personnel, doctrine and training.CDF/SECDEF should establish a small team dedicated to formalising Defence policy on this issue.The ADF should continue prioritising preparing for conventional state-on-state conflict.The Australian government should charge bodies with whole-of-government purviews with understanding grey-zone activities and directing counter grey-zone campaigns.Grey-zone campaigns are cumulative and can cause targets to ‘lose without fighting’. Grey-zone activities use sophisticated ‘operational art’ to layer multiple lines of operation by multiple state and non-state entities.Grey-zone activities benefit from an integration of the deception plan and operational plan.Grey-zone campaigns make strategic gains in terms of subverting democratic practices, cultivating and subverting political elites, building and controlling key infrastructure, deterring resistance.Grey-zone activities are mainly non-military in terms of the tactics used and the organs employed, although the campaign mindset is essentially military.The rise of grey-zone activities is an effort to bypass US conventional military dominance thereby challenging the US-led status quo.As with earlier doctrinal developments, such as operational art, debating the term ‘grey-zone’ may obscure the importance of the underlying concept.Despite criticisms, the term grey-zone is increasingly useful and helps liberal democracies to understand, and potentially counter, coercive campaigns.The term grey-zone is a successor to ‘political warfare’ and stands in contrast to the paradigms of peace/war and civil/military.Grey-zone activities are coercive statecraft actions short of war. Is "Grey Zone" a helpful term, or is it just another fad term that results in military and national security professionals abrogating their required learning about war as a phenomenon?įigure 1: How Our Successors May Look Back on Our View of the Grey-Zone The views expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the position of the ADF, the Department of Defence or the Australian government.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |