ADVANCING 

STRATEGIC THOUGHT 

SERIES

OPERATING 

IN THE GRAY 

ZONE:

AN 

ALTERNATIVE 

PARADIGM FOR 

U.S. MILITARY 

STRATEGY

Antulio J. Echevarria II

Carlisle Barracks, PA and

UNITED STATES 

ARMY WAR COLLEGE

PRESS

i

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Strategic Studies Institute

and

U.S. Army War College Press

OPERATING IN THE GRAY ZONE: 

AN ALTERNATIVE PARADIGM FOR 

U.S. MILITARY STRATEGY

Antulio J. Echevarria II

April 2016

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ISBN 1-58487-725-1
vii

FOREWORD

Much has been written about the ways in which 

rival powers are employing “measures short of war” 

to extend the reach of their policies. These measures—

which cross military, economic, informational, and 

diplomatic lines have been labeled, rather poorly, as 

“hybrid” or “gray zone” wars. None of these measures is novel, except in the ways each has been enhanced by new technologies. However, together they 

expose critical weaknesses in the West’s conception of 

war. One such weakness is the absence of a planning 

framework appropriate for situations that are “not 

war” and “not peace.”

In this monograph, Dr. Antulio J. Echevarria II 

offers such a framework. His aim is to provide military strategists with a vehicle for thinking about outpositioning rival parties rather than merely subduing 

them through kinetic force. By re-orienting our thinking in terms of positioning, Dr. Echevarria argues, 

we will find ourselves better prepared to coerce or 

deter our competitors, two essential competencies for 

operating in the gray zone.

The Strategic Studies Institute and U.S. Army 

War College Press is pleased to publish this important monograph as part of its Advancing Strategic 

Thought Series.

DOUGLAS C. LOVELACE, JR.

Director

Strategic Studies Institute and

 U.S. Army War College Press

ix

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

ANTULIO J. ECHEVARRIA II became the editor of the 

U.S. Army War College Quarterly in February 2013. 

Prior to that, he was the Director of Research for the 

U.S. Army War College. Dr. Echevarria is the author 

of Reconsidering the American Way of War (Georgetown 

University Press, 2014); Clausewitz and Contemporary 

War (Oxford University Press, 2007); Imagining Future 

War (Praeger Securities International, 2007); and After Clausewitz (University Press of Kansas, 2001). He 

has also published extensively in scholarly and professional journals on topics related to military history 

and theory and strategic thinking. Dr. Echevarria is a 

graduate of the U.S. Military Academy, the U.S. Army 

Command and General Staff College, the U.S. Army 

War College, and was a Visiting Research Fellow at 

Oxford University. He holds M.A. and Ph.D. degrees 

in history from Princeton University, and is currently 

working on a book on military strategy for Oxford 

University Press.

xi

SUMMARY

Recent events in Ukraine, Syria, Iraq, and the South 

China Sea continue to take interesting, if not surprising, turns. As a result, many security experts are calling 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 strategies, enhanced by evolving technologies, have exploited 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. 

Hybrid vs Conventional War.

One of the advantages of so-called hybrid or gray 

zone wars is they appear to strike at the seam between conventional and irregular warfare. A practical remedy, then, for such possibilities is to “stitch” 

the seams between the two with redundant capabilities and overlapping responsibilities; redundancy is a 

military necessity that practitioners readily recognize 

but defense budgets rarely permit. Nonetheless, it is 

an effective and simple solution to what some experts 

too eagerly refer to as a complex problem.

Historically, hybrid war has been the norm, whereas conventional war—which basically emerged after 

the Second World War—has been something of a fiction. Many experts seem not to be aware of this fact, 

which explains in part why “hybrid” or “gray zone” 
wars appear to be new. This lack of historical awareness also contributes to the West’s lack of conceptual 

preparedness.

Gray Zone Wars.

What makes gray zone conflicts “interesting” for 

a contemporary strategist is that they occur below the 

North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s (NATO) Article 

5 threshold and below the level of violence necessary 

to prompt a United Nations (UN) Security Council 

Resolution. Thus, to respond to them in a deliberate and considered manner, the U.S. military needs 

to adjust its campaign-planning paradigm. This new 

paradigm must account for more than just the use of 

kinetic military force during wartime, and it must accommodate more than just the goal of dominating an 

adversary through decisive operations. 

Admittedly, any model can be abused by personnel 

not trained in its use. However, a campaign-planning 

model, or paradigm, of some sort is necessary because 

the exercise of non-kinetic (and eventually kinetic) 

power in economic, diplomatic, informational, and 

military dimensions requires a great deal of coordination. Moreover, not only must the United States coordinate its own efforts, it must synchronize them with 

those of its allies and strategic partners. In some cases, 

it must also take into account the activities of nongovernmental and intergovernmental organizations, even 

if it does not coordinate with them directly. 

The Coercion-Deterrence Dynamic.

One way to think of the exercise of power for purposes of coordination is to do so in terms of a coercionxii
xiii

deterrence dynamic. Much literature exists on coercion and on deterrence; however, very little considers 

the two as a single dynamic. That omission is ironic 

since this dynamic is basic to most types of armed 

conflict—with the obvious exception of genocidal 

wars—as well as the majority of combative situations 

short of war.

Typically, one party wants to compel its opponent 

to do something, but at the same time, it wants to deter 

that opponent from doing something else. Thus, it is 

best to think of coercion and deterrence as the proverbial two sides of the same coin for planning purposes.

Rather than domination through decisive operations, as per the current model, the alternative paradigm would have the goal of out-positioning rival 

powers in economic, diplomatic, informational, and 

military dimensions. This goal could apply to peacetime and wartime situations, as well as those between 

them. 

A Practical Application.

How might such operations apply to the case of 

Ukraine, for instance? First, it is important to understand the war’s key features operationally as well as 

strategically; doing so will help to identify some of the 

strengths and weaknesses of the belligerent parties. 

To date, the conflict in Ukraine has had both high-tech 

and low-tech aspects, but the former are much more 

important. As an example of how positioning might 

work from a military standpoint, a high-tech overmatch in electronic warfare (EW) systems and in longrange surveillance assets can tip the balance in favor 

of Ukraine and achieve some coercive and deterrence 

goals for the West. Positioning within the military 
xiv

dimension can thus be expressed as “overmatch,” and 

achieving it facilitates coercion and/or deterrence 

operations. 

For best effect, coercion and deterrence should 

have diplomatic, informational, military/operational, 

and economic dimensions; and these clearly must be 

integrated and synchronized. The proposed framework, then, does not offer new tools, but rather a 

vehicle for coordinating their use.

Understanding Coercion and Deterrence.

Coercion and deterrence have many of the same 

limitations, and if the West desires to use the coerciondeterrence dynamic, it must understand these limitations. Among the most important is that both strategies are fragile and vulnerable to friction, but perhaps 

deterrence more so than coercion. Both thus require 

active monitoring of potentially fluid situations, credible communications across cultural and psychological boundaries and, at least, some shared expectations 

regarding the use of force. Like most other strategies, 

coercion and deterrence are vulnerable to mirror-imaging or projecting one’s values and ways of thinking 

onto one’s adversaries. Such projections lead to risky 

assumptions about what one’s rivals hold dear and 

how they will behave. Perhaps one example is assuming Putin will view stability operations with the same 

sense of importance as the West does.

In sum, the so-called hybrid and gray zone wars 

of the present are not new, but they have highlighted 

important failings in the West’s conception of armed 

conflict as well as the U.S. military’s model for planing campaigns in support of strategies. 
xv

The West does not have to embrace the values of 

its rivals in order to develop counters to their coercive 

strategies. However, it does need a model capable of 

providing flexibility not only from the standpoint of 

responding to a crisis but also from the perspective of 

preventing one. The coercion-deterrence dynamic can 

accomplish that.

For it to work, however, it must be set within an 

equally flexible framework, one capable of accounting for the fluctuating potential and variable combinations of all forms of power. Positioning offers such a 

framework. Gaining the advantage is at the heart of 

strategic practice, as any historical survey or military 

treatise would attest.

Although Western democracies rightly defend the 

inviolability of civilian authority over military leadership, political leaders and diplomats will rarely have 

the training, time, or experience to become experts in 

the use of these strategic tools. It thus falls to military 

professionals to do so. 

1

OPERATING IN THE GRAY ZONE: 

AN ALTERNATIVE PARADIGM FOR 

U.S. MILITARY STRATEGY

Despite its uncertain origins, the mixed blessing of 

living in “interesting times” rings especially true for 

today’s strategists.1 Recent events in Ukraine, Syria, 

Iraq, and the South China Sea continue to take “interesting,” if not surprising, turns. We could say the same 

of the various ways in which military force has been 

used of late. Security analysts, military and policy 

practitioners, and defense scholars alike have struggled to come to terms with such uses, assigning labels 

such as “hybrid” wars, “gray zone” conflicts, “unrestricted warfare,” or “new generation” wars, among 

others, to distinguish contemporary practices from 

those associated with so-called traditional or conventional wars.2

 While the original aim of such labeling, 

or re-labeling, may have been to draw the attention 

of busy policymakers to rapidly emerging security 

issues, it has evolved into something of a culture of 

replication in which the labels are repeated more out 

of habit than conscious reflection. This habit has led 

to a wealth of confusion that has clouded the thinking of policymakers and impaired the development of 

sound counter-strategies. As a result, many security 

experts are calling for revolutionary measures to address what they wrongly perceive to be a new form of 

warfare, but which is, in fact, an application of classic 

coercive strategies, enhanced by ever-evolving technologies, that exploits weaknesses in the West’s security frameworks.

Uses of the term hybrid war, for instance, have 

drifted far afield from its inventors’ original objective, 

which was to raise awareness of threats that cannot 
2

be defeated solely by the employment of airpower 

and special forces.3 By the late-1990s that particular combination of military forces was said to mark 

a “new” American way of war, one that ultimately 

proved irresponsibly limited in scope. Accordingly, 

the term hybrid was initially intended to serve as a 

counterpoise to an otherwise imbalanced approach to 

war. That intention was its chief merit. However, the 

term now stands for the use of more than one “mode” 

of warfare or element of national power, as if doing 

so were something exceptional.4 Its popularity is not 

unlike that associated with the word “blitzkrieg” in 

the 1940s, a label that was never an official term in 

the Wehrmacht’s military doctrine, but rather a neologism coined by the media and political and military commentators at the time.5

 What Premier Paul 

Reynaud declared before the French Senate in late 

spring of 1940 resembles what many analysts are now 

claiming of hybrid warfare: 

Our classic conception of war has come up against a 

new conception . . . Of all the tasks which confront us 

the most important is clear thinking. We must think 

of the new type of warfare we are facing and take immediate decisions.6

Not only was Reynaud’s message too late for France, 

but it was also confused by the panic of the moment. 

While clear and precise thinking is always useful, the 

French were done in less by a new conception of war 

than by a war plan that struck heavily at an unexpected 

point in their lines and against forces that were among 

the least prepared, both in material and in personnel, 

to withstand it (Figure 1).7
3

Figure 1. German Invasion of France 

May 10-16, 1940.

Similar to the newness of the purported blitzkrieg 

of 1940, that of the so-called hybrid warfare of 2014-

15 was more “schein als sein.”8 The success of the Germans in 1940 and of the Russians in 2014 and 2015 

depended not on creating new conceptions of war, 

but on conducting accurate assessments of their opponents, and then developing campaign plans that 

avoided the strengths and exploited the weaknesses 

of those adversaries. In each case, campaign success 

depended greatly on achieving operational surprise, 

which in turn owed much to the defenders’ lack of preparedness across multiple domains. As a rule, vulnerability to surprise is a function of being unprepared. 

It is nonetheless a credit to the information operations of both, the aggressors of 1940 and those of 2014, 
4

that their campaigns were perceived as new forms of 

warfare.9

However, at this stage in the debate, it is no longer enough to urge the defense community to exercise 

greater restraint in the labels it chooses, or to employ 

more precision when describing types of warfare. Such 

undertakings, however tempting to scholars, would 

only condemn one to a fate much like that of Sisyphus, 

and with equally fruitless results. Nor would it suffice 

merely to dismiss hybrid or gray zone wars as nothing 

new, as true as that statement is. Whatever these terms 

might convey to today’s readers, Russian aggression 

and Chinese coercion have highlighted weaknesses 

in the U.S. military’s conceptual framework for planning campaigns in support of strategies. These weaknesses and shortcomings add up to conceptual unpreparedness, which demands a remedy.

Accordingly, this monograph proposes a recentering of the current U.S. campaign-planning paradigm 

for executing military strategy. It offers a framework 

for war planners to use in developing and coordinating strategic options for countering the types of hostile 

activities Beijing and Moscow, especially, have been 

promoting. Since U.S. military thinking helps inform that of many North Atlantic Treaty Organization 

(NATO) members and non-NATO partners, including many in the European Union (EU), the approach 

recommended here may also apply to Western war 

planning more broadly.10
5

HYBRID VS CONVENTIONAL WAR

The literature published on war and strategy is 

extensive, but surprisingly little of it compares “irregular” to “conventional” warfare (or “new” to 

“traditional” warfare) in an analytically meaningful 

way. Instead, most comparisons place a simplistic 

and poorly informed view of the latter against a shallow and mythologized understanding of the former. 

The special report issued in 2010 by the U.S. Government Accounting Office (GAO) is a case in point. This 

widely used report employed a Venn diagram to describe the characteristics of hybrid warfare. The Venn 

diagram from the report consists of two overlapping 

circles, Irregular and Conventional, with Hybrid occupying the middle space (Figure 2).11

Importantly, the diagram also reveals how service 

perspectives have driven the U.S. military’s compartmentalization of war.12 In professional parlance, U.S. 

military services have maintained their expertise by 

assuming “jurisdiction” over specific forms or types 

of warfare. Special operating forces hold purview over 

irregular warfare and general-purpose forces over 

conventional warfare.13 The problem, then, is how to 

assign responsibility for the so-called hybrid space, 

which presumably could exploit any seams between 

the two. Ultimately, this problem is a bureaucratic one 

because the answer lies not in compartmentalizing 

warfare, as bureaucracies are wont to do, but in creating and maintaining responsibilities that deliberately 

overlap.
6

Figure 2. The Hybrid Warfare Concept.

Admittedly, maintaining redundant responsibilities is inefficient and produces friction; yet, it contributes to “sewing up” the seams between the services 

and builds resilience against the realities of strategic 

consumption and combat attrition in wartime. Collectively, the U.S. armed forces share functional and geographic responsibilities for the conduct of war through 

the existing unified command structure. Where necessary, new unified or subunified commands, such as 

the Cyber Command and the Africa Command, have 

been established to provide stronger “stitching” over 

perceived gaps in responsibility.14 Of course, as always, success requires thorough and continuous assessments of organizational authorities and responsibilities to ensure they are adequate.15 Nonetheless, this 

requirement is a challenge, not a crisis.

Source: GAO analysis of Department of Defense (DoD) military 

concept and briefing documents and academic writings.
7

The GAO’s Venn diagram expresses the divisions differently and misleadingly portrays the divisions between conventional and irregular warfare as 

real and discrete. In fact, mainly service interests and 

perspectives drive them, which in turn are supported more by budgetary pressures than by the study 

of warfare. Any historical analysis of armed conflict 

since the beginning of the Thirty Years War (considered by scholars as something of a watershed in the 

rise of the nation-state model) would reveal that conventional warfare, represented in the GAO diagram 

as “state-on-state conflict,” is essentially an artificial 

category. Few, if any, so-called state-on-state conflicts from the Early Modern period to the present fit 

neatly into the category of conventional. Instead, most 

had prominent irregular and conventional features, 

particularly regarding America’s wars from the 18th 

century onward. As a result, nearly all warfare from 

the early-1600s to the present is hybrid in character, 

thereby making the term hybrid redundant.

The Second World War, for instance, is often 

thought of as the quintessential conventional conflict—a clash among nation-states employing massive 

air, ground, and naval forces. Yet, the propaganda 

campaigns, the subversive activities, and the disruptive actions from irregular parties also played vital, if 

underappreciated roles. The Axis powers also used 

propaganda and subversive activities to create confusion and to exacerbate political divisions prior to an 

invasion, as in Denmark, Norway, France, and other 

countries.16 As history shows, the actual extent of seditious elements found in any one country has been 

exaggerated, but that only underscores the degree 

of success such psychological disruption achieved. 

For the Allies—French, Greek, Norwegian, Polish, 
8

and Yugoslav resistance fighters, as well as Soviet partisans and Chinese communist guerrillas all contributed to disrupting Axis plans at critical times. Estimates 

of the size of such forces range from tens of thousands 

to many hundreds of thousands of individual fighters 

depending on the stage of the conflict.17 Some of the 

leaders of these groups, such as Josip Tito of Yugoslavia or Mao Zedong of China, stood at the head of 

major ideological movements that were shaping the 

political landscape of Europe and Asia in violent and 

consequential ways—prior to, during, and after the 

conflict. The irregular aspects of the Second World 

War have not drawn the same degree of attention as 

its conventional features. Nevertheless, to ignore them 

is to foster a misunderstanding not only of this war 

but also of all those to which it is compared.

The absence of historical awareness is not unusual 

in defense circles. After all, policymakers must focus 

on the needs of the present. Unfortunately, this focus 

tends to treat the present as if it were sui generis and 

thus independent of the past, and immune to history’s 

interpretation of the past. The regrettable result is historical illiteracy, which in turn has compounded the 

West’s conceptual unpreparedness. A case in point is 

the characterization of contemporary armed conflict attributed to Russian General Valery Gerasimov 

(Figure 3). While the characteristics he identified may 

have intentionally exaggerated the degree of change 

in the current Russian model of warfare, the fact that 

the discrepancies have gone unchallenged thus far is 

evidence of a lack of historical perspective.18
9

Figure 3. Changes in the Character of Armed 

Conflict According to General Valery Gerasimov, 

Chief of the Russian General Staff.

This chart draws a number of erroneous distinctions between purportedly traditional approaches to 

war and new ones. Items 1 and 2 as they relate to Traditional versus New Military Methods, respectively, 

are patently false. Using the Second World War as 

the quintessential traditional war, Hitler’s divisions 

invaded Poland on September 1, 1939, without a decTraditional Military Methods New Military Methods

 Military action starts after 

strategic deployment 

(Declaration of War).

 Military action starts by 

groups of troops during 

peacetime (war is not 

declared at all).

 Frontal clashes between 

large units consisting mostly 

of ground units.

 Non-contact clashes between 

highly maneuverable 

interspecific fighting groups.

 Defeat of manpower, 

firepower, taking control of 

regions and borders to gain 

territorial control.

 Annihilation of the enemy’s 

military and economic power 

by short-time precise strikes 

in strategic military and 

civilian infrastructure.

 Destruction of economic 

power and territorial 

annexation.

 Massive use of high-precision 

weapons and special 

operations, robotics, and 

weapons that use new 

physical principles (directenergy weapons – lasers, 

short-wave radiation, etc.).

 Combat operations on land, 

air and sea.

 Use of armed civilians (4 

civilians to 1 military).

 Management of troops by 

rigid hierarchy and 

governance.

 Simultaneous strike on the 

enemy’s units and facilities in 

all of the territory.

 Simultaneous battle on land, 

air, sea, and in the 

informational space.

 Use of asymmetric and 

indirect methods.

 Management of troops in a 

unified informational sphere.

Figure 3. Changes in the Character of Armed Conflict 

According to General Valery Gerasimov, 

Chief of the Russian General Staff
10

laration of war; nor did the Japanese declare war on 

the United States before they attacked Pearl Harbor 

on December 7, 1941. In fact, the aggressor rarely declared war because doing so would have meant surrendering certain adventages, especially surprise, to 

the defender. One major exception to this rule was 

the Soviet Union’s declaration of war against Japan 

in August 1945. Moreover, the history of American 

uses of military force, which amounts to more than 

200 cases, shows war was declared against foreign 

powers only 11 times (in 5 wars).19 Furthermore, few 

American conflicts began as “frontal clashes between 

large [ground] units.” Most involved small numbers 

of ground troops or, as with many 20th-century interventions, only engaged naval or air elements. 

Items 3 through 5 can be true or false, depending 

upon the political purpose to be fulfilled by the use 

of force, and the circumstances under which it is employed. Item 6 is true only in regards to conventional 

units; special units or irregular forces typically function with looser command structures.

Under the category New Military Methods, only 

items 3 through 9 are truly new, and they were made 

possible by the advent of emerging communications 

and targeting technologies. Importantly, these items 

do not represent new conceptual approaches to war, 

but rather time-honored ones that novel social media 

tools can execute more effectively. Airpower theories 

provide examples, particularly those of John Warden, which were developed and implemented (with 

mixed success) during the latter decades of the 20th 

century. A notable exception to the technology bias 

is Item 5. To be sure, the use of civilians in military 

roles has been increasing since the 1970s, particularly 

with the rise of private security companies.20 Yet, this 
11

phenomenon is not new, but rather a return to what 

most scholars see as the pre-Westphalian model of 

conflict in which civilians performed many of the 

functions traditionally associated with regular troops, 

often to include fighting.21 The post-Westphalian 

model, whereby the state exercises increasing control over armed conflict, has long been problematic 

for cases outside Europe. In short, comparisons between traditional military methods and so-called new 

ones often misrepresent the former in ways that exaggerate the differences between the two and, in the 

process, obscure the crux of the problem—a party’s 

unpreparedness. 

What the Gerasimov doctrine describes, therefore, 

is classic coercive pressure applied with an admixture 

of newish technological means.22 Modern communications and targeting tools now enhance the ease and 

effectiveness of using informational warfare; they also 

facilitate the “management of troops in a unified informational sphere.” Nor is there anything especially 

new about the employment of so-called “asymmetric and indirect methods.” According to such logic, 

Germany’s use of U-boats in the Second World War 

to interdict Allied shipping across the Atlantic Ocean 

would qualify as asymmetric; yet, it took place within 

the context of a multi-dimensional conventional conflict on a grand scale. Germany’s choice was driven 

largely by circumstances. Nor was commerce raiding 

the only means by which Hitler had hoped to break 

British morale; he also employed terror bombing, 

which many analysts today might classify as asymmetric. In fact, the Second World War was as “full 

spectrum” as any modern war could be, so much so 

that terms like “asymmetric” and “indirect” appear 

naïve. In any event, asymmetry is inherent in the 
12

nature of war, if for no other reason than the intrinsically unequal relationship between attack and defense. Unfortunately, such terms stubbornly persist. 

GRAY ZONE WARS 

What makes gray zone conflicts “interesting” for 

a contemporary strategist is that they occur below 

NATO’s Article 5 threshold, and below the level of 

violence necessary to prompt a UN Security Council 

Resolution.23 In some cases, they also take place below 

an armistice threshold that might trigger stringent 

response measures, such as tighter economic sanctions. Prime examples of such wars are the aggressive 

moves undertaken by Moscow in Crimea and eastern 

Ukraine, and by Beijing in the South China Sea. It 

should be said, however, the “Russo-Ukrainian War” 

is anything but gray to Ukrainians; nor is the Kremlin’s denial of involvement actually persuasive. Yet, 

neither the hostile actions of Moscow nor those of Beijing have provided legal justification for direct military intervention on the part of the West. Typically, the 

West avoids intervening directly unless it first detects 

a breach in lawful norms or protocols (there have been 

some notable exceptions). One way to operate below 

such political and legal thresholds is to employ irregular or highly specialized regular proxies, such as 

volunteers or militias, capable of affording plausible 

deniability to an aggressor. In any case, it is possible to 

counter gray zone aggression that employs paramilitary or extra-military forces with similar measures. 

It is, nevertheless, irrefutably clear that Moscow 

and Beijing have exploited the West’s conception of, 

and long-standing aversion to, armed conflict to accomplish what some Pentagon observers describe as 
13

“wartime-like” objectives. Thus far, these objectives 

have remained outside the scope of what military strategists and campaign planners are legally authorized 

or perhaps professionally trained to address. Figure 

4 depicts this problem graphically using the current 

campaign-planning paradigm, which represents a 

standard crisis-return-to-normalcy model.24

Figure 4. Notional Operation Plan Phases.

The vertical or y-axis shows the expected fluctuation of kinetic military effort over the course of a campaign. Shaping Activities are underway before the 

crisis begins, but these are modest compared to the 

scale of military effort required to resolve the crisis. In 

the early stages of the crisis, Deterring Activities are 

initiated, which then transition into Seizing the Initiative Activities. These become Dominating Activities, 

which in turn transition into Stabilizing Activities. 

Shaping and Deterring Activities continue throughout the campaign, fading as stability is restored 

and military presence is reduced. The fundamental 

Theater Campaign Plan

General Campaign Plan
14

sequence is thus first to seize the initiative, and then 

dominate the opponent, followed by stabilizing the 

situation, and finally passing control to civil authorities. The logic driving this sequence is that domination 

of the opponent is a prerequisite for achieving policy 

goals. Yet, that is not always necessary. In strategies 

of exhaustion, for instance, the object is to make opponents give up the fight without having to dominate 

them physically. Similarly, decapitation strategies or 

operations aimed at regime change do not necessarily 

fit this model, as domination is not required or already 

exists in non-military dimensions. 

What’s more, military practitioners sometimes treat 

the phases as a collective antidote for the uncertainty 

and chaos of war: if commanders know what phase 

they are in, they know what types of operations they 

should be planning and conducting.25 Consequently, 

the phases and their associated planning objectives 

take on a logic of their own, one quite independent of 

and perhaps not aligned with policy aims. Force-sizing constructs, moreover, draw from this paradigm to 

assist in rationalizing the size and role of U.S. forces: if 

Phase III is the crucial one in the campaign-planning 

paradigm, then U.S. forces must be sized and trained 

accordingly; capabilities required for Phases IV and 

V, therefore, would receive lower priorities. As a result, the U.S. military’s uneven performance in those 

phases is an outcome of a self-reinforcing cycle, one 

that mirrors what the services value most while reinforcing their expectations about what is vital in the 

conduct of war. Put differently, the current campaignplanning paradigm exerts prescriptive, if indirect, influence over the conduct of military operations as well 

as the formulation of U.S. defense policy. 
15

Figure 4 thus shows the model’s limitations with 

respect to gray zone wars, specifically, when or rather 

where they occur, namely, within Phases 0 and I, or 

along the seam between them. In this space, the kinetic 

military effort is typically at its lowest level, or nonexistent. Gray zone hostilities, thus, exploit this situation, which is in turn compounded by the West’s overall reticence to use military force. 

The model’s failure to account for such situations 

raises two important questions. The first is whether 

the model itself is flawed, or whether it is simply being 

misapplied or overused. The second is whether any 

model is useful or indeed possible given the complexity of the contemporary strategic environment. Put 

differently, does a model do more harm than good 

if the inclination of military culture is to seek simple 

solutions to complex problems? 

The answer to the first question is, yes: the current 

planning model is flawed because it does not reflect 

reality; and, yes, it has been misused. The model represents an ideal, not a pattern. An ideal is an aspiration—what a perfect campaign should look like. A 

pattern is an approximation of what campaigns have 

looked like. Models should be based on actual practice, not ideals, that is, on approximations rather than 

aspirations. Otherwise, they lead to cognitive dissonance between expectations and realities. The current 

planning model suggests the ideal is domination of an 

opponent. Yet, in practice, domination is neither always possible nor always necessary. Most objectives 

are far short of this goal and thus, much time and 

effort is wasted in trying to achieve the unnecessary. 
16

Oddly, not only does the current model overlook 

this point, it neglects the patterns evident in America’s own wars and military interventions. The most 

frequent type of military strategy used by the United 

States in the 20th century was decapitation, particularly in Latin America where it often supported 

policies aimed at regime change. As a starting point, 

a campaign-planning model for U.S. troops ought to 

draw from how and why Americans have actually 

used force historically. Clearly, the research for such 

a model must have a broad basis, but to ignore U.S. 

history is to say no core or enduring interests ever 

drove American uses of military force. Recent efforts 

to topple the Taliban and to remove Saddam Hussein, 

Muammar Gaddafi, and Bashar Assad from power 

serve as reminders that American history remains 

relevant to the contemporary American way of war. 

Figure 5 offers a snapshot of America’s various 

armed conflicts and military interventions from 1775 

to 2015. It is worth noting that none of these conflicts 

fits the current campaign-planning paradigm accurately. Even in the Civil War and the Second World 

War, where we should expect to see some alignment, 

America’s opponents were not “dominated,” per se, 

by the conduct of decisive operations in a nominal 

Phase III. During both wars, U.S. forces (and their allies) gained the upper hand in many dimensions, but 

acquiring advantages will not necessarily equate to 

domination. In each case, “domination” did not occur 

until stability operations created it in Phase IV. Domination does not come with winning a decisive battle,
17

Figure 5. America’s Wars and Armed Interventions.

but with establishing control over an adversary’s political and legal institutions, to include its military 

ones. Decisive victory does not create the conditions 

for domination; it is merely a precursor to them. It allows us to put the appropriate forces and other elements in the proper places to achieve control.

To answer the second question, the pitfalls of misusing models, of mistaking aspirations for patterns, 

can be addressed in part through military education and training. However, that alone will not suffice without the aid of a flexible framework. While a 

single campaign-planning model, per se, is not necessary, some organizing framework is needed to coordinate military, interagency, and international efforts. 

Such an outline might also prove useful to some nongovernmental and intergovernmental organizations 

though these are not obliged to coordinate their efforts 

with those of the United States and its allies. 

Models, like theories, should explain rather than 

prescribe; but they are often employed for the latter 

purpose, even by those who should know better or 

War: The use of military force to protect or promote one’s interests.
18

who may have only the best of intentions. A general 

framework, perhaps centered on positioning as proposed here, is thus a better option. It can be made 

loose enough to account for, and to assist in coordinating, multiple lines of effort across any number of 

“peacetime” or “wartime” situations. The individual 

phases themselves would be left to military and policy 

practitioners to develop jointly, rather than to enshrine 

them in doctrine. As such, this framework would lack 

that essential ingredient, a template, which makes it 

vulnerable to prescriptive abuses. Even with such a 

general framework, the U.S. military’s professional 

education system would do well to continue warning of the pitfalls of rigidly adhering to any doctrine. 

As always, the goal of military instruction must be 

to enhance professional judgment, not to promote 

doctrinaire adherence to a given template or set of 

principles.

To be sure, the decision to use military force should 

always remain a policy choice. That principle notwithstanding, Western strategists and war planners (both 

NATO and non-NATO) need an alternative campaign 

model, one that enables them to develop counters 

to gray zone wars before hostilities commence. As a 

minimum, such a model should aid military professionals in developing the military advice they must 

provide policymakers when asked.26 In actuality, the 

West is not facing a new conception of war, but rather 

an older one. Better said, an “old-fashioned” version 

unencumbered by post-modern political norms and 

legal constraints.27 At the very least, then, any alternative model must portray the “pre” and “post” stages 

of conflict more inclusively. 

What might such a military-strategic or campaign 

model look like? It is important to note the operational 
19

phases depicted in Figure 2 are currently under revision. Whenever the new doctrine is published, it may 

not have the same phases or even the same number of 

them. In fact, it likely will not. However, that is unimportant because the goal at this stage is to offer and 

debate alternatives. The current schematic of operational phases, referred to by some insiders (less than 

affectionately) as the “sand chart,” merely serves as a 

point of reference, a way to visualize the problem.

The Coercion-Deterrence Dynamic.

We can simplify the problem of representing gray 

zone wars by regarding Moscow’s hostile actions in 

Ukraine and Beijing’s activities in the South China Sea 

as either an act of coercion or deterrence or a combination of both. Modern strategic studies address coercion and deterrence at length. None, however, treats 

the two as complementary components of a single, core 

dynamic. Yet, this dynamic is fundamental not only 

to war itself, however it is defined, but also to what 

precedes and follows it—which, again, may not fall 

neatly within the definition of peace. As Clausewitz 

noted, war is the use of force to compel an opponent 

to do one’s will.28 Put differently, armed conflict is at 

root coercion (or compelling) by violent means. Yet, 

as modern dictionaries show, violence encompasses 

much more than the use of kinetic military force.

Activities outside the realm of armed conflict thus 

also involve coercion, diplomatic and otherwise, even 

though the level of force employed might not cross 

the threshold into a declared war. Some might call this 

type of coercion “political warfare,” though this term, 

like so many labels, ultimately adds more confusion 

than it dispels.29 If war takes place within the “womb” 
20

of politics, as Clausewitz claimed, then all warfare is 

ineluctably political.30 The question is whether a policy 

and the war it begets will be aggressive or defensive in 

nature. Either way, the adjective “political” is unnecessary when associated with warfare. In Clausewitz’s 

view, the essential difference between political coercion during peacetime and political coercion during 

wartime was simply the addition of physical fighting, 

combat. 

Clausewitz’s discussion of defense also draws on 

the logic of deterrence. Most strategists today would 

agree: our ability to deter is at least partly dependent 

upon our ability to defend, and vice versa. The two 

concepts are closely related, but deterrence is the 

larger category because we sometimes need offensive 

capabilities (not just defensive ones) to deter, especially in situations involving extended deterrence. 

In addition, a successful deterrence usually means a 

successful defense, though defense can succeed even 

after deterrence fails. Put another way, we can add a 

corollary to Clausewitz’s proposition that the defense 

is stronger than the attack, namely, to coerce, is more 

difficult than to deter.

Indeed, in practice, coercion and deterrence constitute the proverbial opposite sides of the same coin: we 

attempt to compel others to do what we want while 

at the same time deterring or dissuading them from 

doing what we do not want. This coercion-deterrence 

dynamic exists in nearly every type of conflict. The exception that proves the rule is genocidal war because 

it aims not to coerce a population but to eliminate 

it. Even ethnic cleansing (which differs in kind from 

genocide) is at the bottom for driving a people from 

a territory and makes use of both coercive and deterrence measures. 
21

More significantly, the coercion-deterrence dynamic is also relevant to conditions short of war, 

which makes it well-suited for gray zone situations. 

Between 1936 and 1939, for instance, Adolf Hitler’s 

willingness to risk war—juxtaposed against the allies’ 

desire to preserve peace—made his use of coercive 

force and diplomacy quite effective. We might call it 

coercive diplomacy today, though the term was not 

in vogue at the time. Instead, it was more likely to be 

called “armed diplomacy,” or “gunboat diplomacy” 

when referring to maritime confrontations.31 Hitler’s 

brand of armed or coercive diplomacy used a military 

force that was rearming the Wehrmacht (which even 

early on was obsolete in important ways, especially 

regarding its tanks) to exert both a deterrent and coercive pressure. Hitler deterred heads of state in London 

and Paris from using force, while coercing them into 

granting his demands for territorial acquisitions. The 

idea of going to war, even with demonstrably favorable odds, was decidedly uncomfortable to British and 

French diplomats whose publics still remembered the 

high costs of the last war. 

One solution for dealing with gray zone wars, 

therefore, is to design operations and campaigns 

around the coercion-deterrence dynamic, which is, 

around either coercing or deterring rival powers, or 

some combination of the two. Most campaigns will 

likely entail a fluid blending of the two. Peacetime coercive and deterrence operations might include activities such as the following: mobilizing military forces, 

initiating training exercises along a border, conducting aircraft overflights or other shows of force, executing arms transfers, or sharing intelligence. Moreover, 

actions once referred to, somewhat derisively, as 

“military operations other than war” can easily sup-
22

port a coercion-deterrence framework: enforcement of 

sanctions, implementation of no-fly zones, as well as 

airstrikes, and counterterrorism raids, among others.32

Such uses of force can often help in establishing credibility or demonstrating resolve, key elements in the 

success of any coercive or deterrence strategy.

The point is many of the tools contemporary strategists and campaign planners need are already present; 

the coercion-deterrence dynamic merely affords them 

a framework within which to develop and coordinate 

short-range options or longer-term courses of action. 

Accordingly, an alternate to the “sand chart” might 

look something like Figure 6. 

Figure 6. A Framework for Positioning.

This figure depicts the elements of national power 

as Lines of Effort, in which military force is not necessarily the central one. It is, however, almost always a 

key one in that it often provides a means for exercising 

the others. A naval blockade, for instance, is a form 
23

of economic warfare carried out using military force. 

U.S. policymakers have long called for a “whole-ofgovernment” approach to the formulation of strategy and the waging of war, but little has happened to 

turn the rhetoric into practice. This might be one step 

toward realizing that aim. In any case, military strategists and campaign planners must think in terms of 

an integrated expression of power, not only for our 

own security but also to understand how to weaken 

that of our rivals.

Figure 6 portrays the intensity of force evenly within each Line of Effort, but in practice, the scale would 

be dependent on variables too numerous to list. In addition, the elements of national power unfold at different rates. Military power can achieve swift effects 

with air strikes; but if the aim is to provide security for 

populations within a certain zone, prolonged effects 

may be needed. Likewise, economic power can take 

quite some time to develop depending on the type of 

infrastructure involved, though financial warfare in the 

form of credit denial or targeted sanctions can achieve 

results quickly. Similarly, informational power can 

achieve faster results if it plays to existing prejudices, 

those things people want or have been conditioned to 

believe, rather than attempting to alter perceptions or 

change minds to embrace new ideas. Russian information operations have succeeded largely because they 

took advantage of years of anti-Western—and especially anti-U.S. rhetoric.33 Ultimately, the ability to exercise diplomatic power depends on the capabilities 

resident in other domains. Thus, the pace and scale of 

each Line of Effort largely (but not only) depends on 

the strengths and weaknesses of our rivals relative to 

our own, and in light of our objectives and any legal 

and political constraints. 
24

Notably, in this diagram, Positioning takes the 

place of Shaping and Deterring. The term Shaping 

has always been vague and inadequate.34 In contrast, 

Positioning conveys a clearer sense of immediate and 

long-term objectives for each Line of Effort: to gain positional advantages that facilitate accomplishing what 

we want to achieve overall. 

As historical analysis suggests, at root, strategy is 

simply the practice of countering the strengths and exploiting the weaknesses of an opponent in ways that 

make accomplishing our objectives ever more likely. 

For grand strategists, that means building alliances,

coalitions, and other security or trade agreements to 

enhance our global position relative to our competitors. For military strategists, that amounts to employing the various types of military power made 

available by those agreements to weaken, or nullify, 

our rivals’ ability to resist—all with the aim of furthering the designs of grand strategy. 

Such positioning takes place not only in physical or 

geographical dimensions but also in cultural and psychological ones. Positioning can also be expressed in 

qualitative or quantitative terms; with respect to military power, for instance, out-positioning our rivals is 

commonly referred to as achieving “overmatch” and 

it has dimensions involving weaponry, leadership, 

training, and logistics that are clearly qualitative and 

quantitative in nature. 

In addition, the much maligned and often misused 

“principles of war,” such as mass and surprise, are in 

fact nothing more than relative operational advantages. Many Western militaries have developed sets of 

more or less the same principles, which all too quickly 

(and all too regrettably) become recipes for victory.35

Whether any principles of war are enduring or time-
25

less is irrelevant; all that matters is whether they offer 

useful advantages in any given situation. Accruing 

such advantages does not guarantee victory, of course; 

but it does make our task progressively easier and our 

opponent’s increasingly more difficult.

Even in the absence of a grand strategy, which 

some scholars argue is too often the case for the 

United States, the pursuit of positional advantages 

will usually further most U.S. interests.36 For situations in which Washington might wish to cooperate 

rather than to compete with its rivals, positional advantages can form a portion of the “trade-space” in 

negotiations. 

Simply put, strategy at any level amounts to gaining those advantages—diplomatically, informationally, militarily, and economically—that make it more 

and more likely we will achieve what we want. Admittedly, what we want may depend greatly on what we 

think we can get, which in turn hinges on how we assess our strengths and weaknesses in relation to those 

of our opponents, a relationship that is both subjective 

and subject to change. In Figure 4, therefore, Positioning takes the place of Shaping and Deterring; but, like 

them, it must continue indefinitely. 

A necessary corollary to this rule, then, is that the 

pre-war phase of conflict is crucial, perhaps even “decisive” in military terminology, in the prosecution of 

armed conflict. Steps taken during this phase—attracting the best allies or partners, conducting an objective 

net assessment, getting the politics right, achieving 

and securing operational overmatch—are of obvious 

and enormous importance. Furthermore, mistakes 

made at this stage can be difficult to undo later; poor 

decisions at the outset can make “winning” the conflict and achieving a favorable settlement problematic 
26

to say the least. Figure 7, thus, stresses the importance 

of heightening the awareness of military strategists 

and campaign planners regarding the value of prewar positioning, to include properly arming one’s 

allies and partners.37

Figure 7. Key Positioning Activities.

After more than a decade of fighting in Iraq and 

Afghanistan, the U.S. military has come to appreciate 

the importance of Phases IV and V. Laudable efforts 

have gone into understanding the value of stability 

operations and support operations and the capabilities needed to conduct them. However, the U.S. military may now run the risk of forgetting how even 

the best efforts in those phases could not overcome 

mistakes made in Phases 0 and I; the effects of those 

early errors persisted and worked against achieving 

satisfactory outcomes in both conflicts.
27

A Practical Application.

How might such operations apply to the Ukrainian case, for instance? First, it is important to understand the war’s key features operationally as well as 

strategically; doing so will help identify some of the 

strengths and weaknesses of the belligerent parties. 

Thus far, the “Russo-Ukrainian War” in the Donbass 

reveals contemporary combat formations are integrated systems, just as they have always been, but with 

a twist. Brigade or battalion combat teams now consist of armor, mechanized infantry, self-propelled and 

towed artillery, rockets, mortars, as well as an array 

of anti-aircraft and electronic warfare (EW) weapons. 

These systems are generally aided by surveillance 

conducted by remotely piloted aerial vehicles (usually referred to as UAVs or drones), which can also be 

armed with air-to-surface missiles.38

In some respects, armored mobility has returned 

to the battlefield: newer models of tanks (such as T90s and modified T-72s) and other heavy vehicles 

equipped with reactive armor are reasonably wellprotected against contemporary anti-tank weapons. 

However, they remain vulnerable to attack from 

above by UAVs or by artillery munitions designed to 

penetrate the tops of vehicles (where little or no reactive armor is present). In turn, UAVs are vulnerable 

to jamming by EW weapons that disrupt the vehicles’ 

GPS systems. Artillery, mortars, and multiple launch 

rocket systems (MLRSs) can destroy mechanized units 

in short order. Nonetheless, counter-battery radar 

can detect such indirect-fire systems and thus subject 

them to rapid and devastating counter-fires. According to at least one source, artillery has accounted for 
28

85 percent of casualties in the Russo-Ukrainian conflict; this percentage is significantly higher than that 

of the Second World War where the average was 75 

percent.39 Notably, most Russian artillery systems 

today deliver area-fires rather than precision-fires. 

Many engagements occur at long ranges, between 

10 to 15 kilometers, well beyond the direct line of sight. 

Accordingly, the lethality of the contemporary 

battlefield has increased tremendously, and military 

formations must remain highly mobile and dispersed 

while within the range of enemy weapons: Russian battalion combat teams now occupy the same frontage as 

their Cold War brigades once did, and they have artillery units assigned in direct support to maneuver with 

them. EW and air-defense systems have become vital 

elements for any combat formation; if a unit’s EW systems are rendered inoperable, it becomes vulnerable 

to detection by UAVs, which can help direct artillery 

and rocket fires onto it within a few short minutes. In 

reality, combat formations lacking even one of the major elements in this integrated combat system—armor, 

infantry, artillery, air, anti-aircraft weaponry, and EW 

capabilities—are vulnerable to defeat in detail.

The technological character of contemporary warfare puts a premium on achieving technological or 

numerical overmatch against one’s foe. However, the 

Ukrainian military admitted to being unprepared, not 

only technologically, but in most other dimensions.40

It possessed little in the way of matching capabilities 

(not to mention overmatch), and thus found it difficult not only to win engagements but also to present 

a credible deterrent to Russian or separatist forces. 

Hence, Ukrainian forces lacked the ability to coerce 

their foes. NATO and non-NATO organizations can 

help remedy at least the technological dimension of 
29

that imbalance by providing weaponry with greater 

range, accuracy, and survivability than the Russians 

possess. The aim should be to facilitate the exhaustion 

of Russian forces by inflicting ever-higher losses on 

them. Note: the aim differs from that typically associated with a strategy of attrition. Historically, mercenary, contractor, and “ad hoc volunteer” formations 

have been vulnerable to wars of exhaustion. Reports 

of Russian efforts to avoid military service, if true, 

suggest such measures would prove beneficial to 

Western deterrence efforts.41

For best effect, coercion and deterrence should 

have diplomatic, informational, military/operational, 

and economic dimensions; and these clearly must be 

integrated and synchronized. However, thus far, the 

economic dimension—the imposition first of personal, then sectoral sanctions—is the strongest one, albeit, 

its effectiveness is unclear. Early reports suggested 

the Russian economy was suffering, falling exchange 

rates, rising consumer prices, and a plummeting gross 

domestic product (GDP).42 Yet, these results may well 

have had more to do with tumbling oil prices and 

Putin’s counterproductive economic policies than 

the sanctions themselves, though the latter certainly 

inhibited Moscow’s ability to take remedial action by 

limiting its access to international markets and loaning 

institutions.43 As some analysts warn, however, economic coercion in the form of sanctions may become 

more difficult to employ in pursuit of policy objectives due to the ability of states with larger economies, 

such as China, to retaliate by limiting access to their 

markets.44 Other reasons include workarounds, such 

as black markets and alternative trading partners, as 

well as the basic reluctance of companies to follow 

sanction protocols that might hurt their bottom lines. 
30

As reports from the U.S. Department of Defense 

and NATO headquarters indicate, a form of military 

deterrence is already underway with some repositioning of troops in Eastern Europe, in addition to an 

uptick in training exercises and other shows of force.45

Critically, success in the military dimension also consists of establishing and reinforcing anti-access/aerial 

denial (A2/AD) or “no-go” zones to restrict Russian 

freedom of maneuver in strategically and operationally important areas, such as Kiev or in the region 

around the port city of Mariupol. If denied air cover 

and EW protection, Russian units cannot maneuver 

without risking detection and swift decimation. Arms 

sales or transfers of equipment capable of providing 

Ukrainian combat formations with technological overmatch, or, at least, parity, in EW assets and counterbattery radars, would thus target such efforts. 

Understanding Vladimir Putin’s motives might 

prove useful, as some analysts claim.46 However, doing so could prove counterproductive if he chooses 

to remain flexible in how he prioritizes and achieves 

them.47 In any case, he has not disguised his overall 

aims, as some experts have noted.48 For these reasons, 

the West’s goals are (or should be) contingent on what 

Putin has demonstrated he is capable of doing, rather 

than what he might want in each case. For instance, 

the West may well decide to take additional steps to 

deter further aggression in Ukraine and other parts 

of Eastern Europe, even while pressing forward with 

further diplomatic initiatives vis-à-vis Moscow. It 

might thus apply coercive pressure aimed at encouraging Putin to reduce some of his support to separatist forces, and channeling his intervention in Syria 

more constructively. The deterrence objective could 

be accomplished by providing qualitatively superior 
31

military hardware, in enough numbers, to Ukrainian 

troops, so they have the capability of launching limited counterattacks and of inflicting higher casualties 

on hostile forces than they themselves incur. The battles in Ukraine have been primitive in many respects, 

but high-tech in others; the speed and range of one’s 

weapons, therefore, matter a great deal. Furthermore, 

arming Ukrainian troops with specific high-tech 

weaponry complements the West’s use of economic 

coercion (through sanctions) by compounding the fiscal costs for Moscow. 

The aim of sanctions has been both to punish Moscow and to make sustaining the invasion of Ukraine 

economically untenable. Accordingly, a military strategy aimed at causing Russia to expend more economic 

resources in countering Ukrainian high-tech systems 

would complement such aims, and various studies already exist describing how such cost-imposing strategies might work.49 In short, even in the environment 

of a gray zone war, NATO military planners can, and 

should, design campaigns in which coercive or deterrence operations, or in combination, are conducted 

to enhance diplomatic, informational, and economic 

measures already in play, or under development. 

Such military operations need not involve physical combat though it is generally difficult to coerce or 

deter rivals if one’s willingness to use military force 

is not abundantly clear to all parties. Still, military 

strategists and campaign planners essentially have all 

the tools they might need to design and carry out “nonshooting” coercive and deterrence operations. While 

military hardware, advisors, and intelligence support 

may be limited legally or politically, for the most part, 

the West can function within such restrictions. Ambiguity presents opportunities to both sides, not just 

aggressors. 
32

However, to take advantage of this ambiguity, the 

West will have to adjust its mindset. One step in the 

right direction would be to set aside such terms as 

“opponent” or “enemy” in favor of “rival” or “competitor.” Unlike enemies, rivals may cooperate in one 

theater while competing in another. To illustrate the 

point, we may call upon the quintessential conventional war once again, the Second World War, specifically the uneasy alliance between the Western powers 

and the Soviet Union. The West must also embrace 

what Clausewitz referred to as strategy’s “quiet labor,” that is, the ceaseless work of integrating military 

aims and political objectives, and of acquiring as many 

advantages as possible before, during, and after any 

use of military force.50 Strategy does not stop simply 

because funding streams do; plenty of opportunities 

remain for coercive activity to take place below the 

threshold of war, and these must be strategized and 

war-gamed. If history is any guide, we can be sure our 

rivals will instigate coercive activities wherever and 

whenever it appears to be advantageous to do so.

Understanding Coercion and Deterrence.

To employ the coercion-deterrence dynamic, the 

West’s military strategists and campaign planners 

need to study each strategy more closely because each 

has important limitations. These do not disappear 

when the two are used in tandem. As stated previously, coercion usually means compelling people to 

do something, such as surrender; whereas, deterrence 

is commonly seen as getting people to opt not to do 

something, such as becoming irregular fighters and 

continuing to fight.51 Clearly, each strategy closely 

resembles the other. Coercive strategies typically 
33

include such measures as punishment, denial, intimidation, and reward—all of which have been in use 

for centuries. Rome’s legions fought many punitive 

actions designed to coerce opponents rather than to 

annihilate or enslave them. Punishment might have 

been severe in some cases, but usually, Rome wanted 

tribute, not ruins. Medieval wars, as well, often aimed 

at coercing foes through military actions designed 

to punish or deny, such as taking livestock, burning 

crops, or imposing levies. 

Although coercive strategies have been employed 

for centuries, serious study of them did not begin until the 1950s and 1960s. The two pioneers in this subject were the political scientist and national security 

analyst Robert E. Osgood and the Harvard economist, 

game theorist, and Nobel Prize winner, Thomas C. 

Schelling. As Osgood, a veteran of the Second World 

War, noted: “The purpose of war is to employ force 

skillfully in order to exert the desired effect on an 

adversary’s will along a continuous spectrum from 

diplomacy, to crises short of war, to an overt clash 

of arms.”52 To this view, Schelling added the argument that military force could not only shape an adversary’s behavior short of all-out war, but it could 

also be applied in “controlled” and “measured” ways 

to compel, intimidate, or deter. “The power to hurt,” 

Schelling asserted, “is bargaining power. To exploit it 

is diplomacy—vicious diplomacy, but diplomacy.”53

Its purpose is to alter an opponent’s behavior without 

having one’s own conduct modified too greatly in the 

process.54

This view forms the basis for the “bargaining model” of war in which military power functions almost 

as a type of currency to be expended in a process of 

violent bartering.55 It is a view well-suited for gray 
34

zone wars though it has serious limitations in that the 

currency of exchange is actually lives, not goods. That 

fact adds another dimension to the notion of bargaining because it means, with mounting casualties, parties can become invested in an armed conflict in ways 

not typical of bartering. Consequently, they might 

remain committed to a course of action longer than 

they should; it is easier to “walk away” from the marketplace than from an armed conflict.

Coercion and its complement, deterrence, thus require viewing diplomacy and war together, as a “continuous spectrum,” rather than as they are perceived 

today, as an activity bifurcated along distinct political 

and military areas of responsibility. Unfortunately, 

as stated earlier, this partition exists more for legal, 

doctrinal, or bureaucratic reasons, which do not necessarily facilitate the practice of strategy. While those 

boundaries must be respected as far as the approval 

of military actions is concerned, they are poor excuses 

for not planning or strategizing potential courses of 

action. 

To be sure, the West’s political and legal partitions 

render it vulnerable to exploitation by its rivals. However, the task of the strategist is to overcome these 

weaknesses by finding workarounds that are acceptable both legally and politically. The West could certainly remove its self-imposed partitions, if it wished, 

or at least adjust them so they are less limiting. Nonetheless, doing so would likely prove difficult since 

those partitions are closely intertwined with the West’s 

values, and many Western states do not want the recourse to war to be an easy one. A clear and present 

existential threat might prompt a radical shift in those 

values. However, gray zone wars, by design, are not 

meant to pose such a threat. 
35

Coercion and deterrence have many of the same 

limitations. Both require active monitoring of potentially fluid situations, credible communications across 

cultural and psychological boundaries, and at least 

some shared expectations regarding the use of force. 

Like most other strategies, coercion and deterrence 

are vulnerable to mirror-imaging, or projecting one’s 

values and ways of thinking onto one’s adversaries. 

Such projections lead to risky assumptions about 

what one’s rivals hold dear and how they will behave. 

Perhaps one example is assuming Putin will view stability operations with the same sense of importance as 

the West does.

 In theory, coercive strategies offer more flexibility 

and greater control over escalation than other military 

strategies such as attrition or annihilation, though 

these too can exert coercive and deterrent pressure. 

We can apply coercive force incrementally in what is 

known as “graduated pressure,” an approach tried by 

U.S. Presidents James Polk in the Mexican-American 

War, and Lyndon Johnson in the Vietnam War. Each 

applied force in steps or phases, increasing its intensity with the aim of bringing their opponents to the 

negotiating table. The idea was to avoid committing 

more military power than necessary, or no more than 

the American public seemed likely to abide. However, 

each ran into difficulty because their respective opponents’ pain thresholds were higher than anticipated, 

which in turn meant the amount of coercive force had 

to be increased beyond what was expected.56 As one 

historian noted with regard to the conflict in Vietnam, 

“The level of pain Hanoi was prepared to endure was 

greater than Washington could inflict.”57

To be sure, applying coercive pressure gradually 

may help achieve one’s objectives at minimal cost; 
36

however, it can also prolong the struggle and increase 

one’s losses until war weariness sets in and the public 

demands an end to the conflict. Friction and human 

emotion can also make it more difficult to measure 

and control the level of force we employ, thereby 

potentially leading to escalation. 

In addition to these limitations, deterrence has 

several others unique to it.58 A military strategy of 

deterrence requires making our adversary believe 

we have the physical and psychological capacity either to defeat an act of aggression or to make its costs 

exceed its benefits. International relations literature 

currently recognizes four types of deterrence: direct,

which refers to deterring an attack against oneself; 

extended—deterring an attack against a friend or 

ally; general—deterring a potential threat; and immediate—deterring an imminent attack.59 In practice, 

these usually overlap in some way. For instance, the 

French and British practiced immediate and extended 

deterrence on behalf of Poland in 1939 but failed to 

dissuade Hitler from invading it.

Much of today’s strategic literature also underscores how difficult it can be to assess whether a strategy of deterrence is working. It is not always possible 

to know whether the absence of a rival’s action was 

because of deterrence, or despite it. As former U.S. National Security Advisor, Henry Kissinger, once noted: 

Since deterrence can only be tested negatively, by 

events that do not take place, and since it is never possible to demonstrate why something has not occurred, 

it became especially difficult to assess whether the 

existing policy was the best possible policy or a just 

barely effective one.60
37

It may actually be possible to research historical 

records, as they become declassified, to determine 

whether in certain cases deterrence truly worked. Obviously, those results will come well after the fact, and 

might not serve the needs of military planners. It is 

best, therefore, to accept this uncertainty at the outset. 

Second, deterrence is inherently fragile. It rests on 

establishing a balance of power—in technological, military, political, and diplomatic dimensions—that can 

change quickly, and give one party a decisive advantage over the other; or one party may feel it is losing 

parity and must act before it is too late. Consequently, 

deterrence can have a short shelf-life. For that reason, 

a deterrence strategy requires constant attention. 

Third, as with any military strategy, deterrence requires knowing one’s adversaries, especially since not 

all would-be aggressors can be deterred. Some, like 

Hitler, could be delayed, but not truly deterred. Whenever they hesitated, they did so only long enough to 

deal with a problem on another front or to gain a better 

advantage in the situation before them. Additionally, 

“suicide bombers” may have challenged the rationalactor model of deterrence in recent years. One way of 

coping with such actors is by denying them the conditions they require for success, such as by hardening 

defenses and dispersing likely targets so as to reduce 

casualties, thereby making the attack itself seem less 

useful.61 Deterrence also works best when parties 

share a baseline of expectations. Each party must be 

able to “read” the motives and actions of its rival; otherwise, counterproductive decisions can occur. 

Finally, deterrence is vulnerable to friction and 

chance. Accidents, large or small, always happen. It 

can be difficult to determine whether such incidents 

were accidental: was an aircraft overflight due to 
38

pilot error, or was it on a special mission? How parties respond to accidents or unforeseen events can 

easily upset deterrence, particularly if efforts at communication are misperceived; this is especially true 

of nuclear deterrence. Communication is, of course, 

vital, but cultural and psychological filters can act 

as a form of friction and distort one’s intended message. That is not to say ambiguity is never beneficial 

in strategy. Sometimes it can be useful to keep rivals 

guessing as to where one stands. Ambiguity is, in fact, 

one of the principles underpinning the 1979 Taiwan 

Relations Act, which clearly stated the United States 

did not support Taiwan independence but also laid 

the groundwork for a “robust unofficial relationship” 

between the two parties.62

As a matter of comparison, Beijing’s particular approach to gray zone wars involves a form of direct 

deterrence. It consists of positioning several hundred 

land-based, anti-ship ballistic and cruise missiles in a 

manner capable of denying or restricting the movement of other countries’ naval vessels within the East 

China and South China Seas. The Chinese may well 

view their strategy as “counter-intervention” or “peripheral defense,” since it is designed to prevent other 

powers from interfering in offshore areas Beijing sees 

as vital to its interests.63 In contrast, the Pentagon refers to this strategy as anti-access/area-denial (A2/

AD) since it hampers Washington’s ability to provide 

extended deterrence for its allies in the region. Beijing’s counter-intervention strategy includes not only 

the use of modern air and missile technologies but 

also a Chinese version of “political warfare,” which 

entails refuting the lawfulness of an intervention, also 

known as “law-warfare” or “lawfare.”64 As noted, the 

West’s legalist view of war is particularly vulnerable 

to this tactic.
39

In response, the United States and its allies have 

considered employing their own A2/AD strategy, 

one that would restrict the movement of Chinese and 

North Korean vessels within the Western Pacific Region.65 If implemented, the West’s countermove will 

result in overlapping missile and aircraft defensive 

zones along the Pacific Rim. Yet, the West can do 

much more to strengthen its strategic position with 

respect to China. It can enhance its alliances in the region with more multilateral training exercises, intelligence sharing, and cooperation, and even arms sales 

and rearmament programs in select cases; it can also 

develop additional trade agreements along the lines 

of the Trans-Pacific Partnership. The West also needs 

to do more in the way of strategic communications to 

shore up its image in Asia and the Pacific, and especially in China.

A word of caution is in order, however, since 

implementing coercion and deterrence strategies can 

lead to competition for military superiority, an arms 

race. Simply defined, an arms race is an effort to 

keep pace with, or to surpass, an adversary’s military 

might. Some debate exists over whether an arms race 

is underway in Asia and the Pacific rim.66 History, in 

fact, shows arms races are often the outgrowth of the 

coercion-deterrence dynamic. One critical question, 

then, is whether the West believes its collective economic power is sufficient to prevail in such a race and 

whether it wants to accept the risk of engaging in one. 

With that in mind, the West would do well to review 

its economic policies and ensure they are up to the 

challenges of global competition in the 21st century.

In sum, the so-called hybrid and gray zone wars 

of the present are not new, but they have highlighted 

important failings in the West’s conception of armed 
40

conflict as well as the U.S. military’s model for planning campaigns in support of strategy. The West’s 

conception of war is at once unrealistic and self-limiting. It confines armed conflict to an artificially narrow 

space in the spectrum of international behavior, rather 

than giving it broader scope as a risky but common 

political activity. As a result, the West has put itself 

at a disadvantage. Its rivals do not view war as an 

anomaly but as a natural, if sometimes costly, means 

of pursuing their interests. The West does not have 

to embrace the values of its rivals in order to develop 

counters to their coercive strategies. However, it does 

need a model capable of providing flexibility not only 

from the standpoint of responding to a crisis but also 

from the perspective of preventing one. The coerciondeterrence dynamic can accomplish that.

For it to work, however, it must be set within an 

equally flexible framework, one capable of accounting 

for the fluctuating potential and variable combinations 

of all forms of power. Positioning offers such a framework. Gaining an advantage is at the heart of strategic 

practice, as any historical survey or military treatise 

would attest. While that fact is not necessarily in dispute—what the West in general and the United States, 

in particular, have lacked for some time is a framework capable of capturing and rationalizing that practice. Positioning offers that framework, and it does so 

without sacrificing flexibility in terms of the method 

or the intensity of application. Accruing advantages, 

in turn, adds heft to coercion and deterrence, and may 

help pave the way for cooperation on other fronts and 

in other ways. 

Viewing hybrid or gray zone wars as forms of coercion, deterrence, or both facilitates lifting their veil 

of ambiguity. It also enables military strategists and 
41

campaign planners to develop courses of action capable of applying pressure to as many dimensions as 

possible, and for as long as desired, to achieve policy 

goals. 

Unfortunately, the U.S. military’s current model 

for designing campaigns overlooks both the coerciondeterrence dynamic and framework of positioning. It 

exists independent of political contexts and objectives 

and portrays military campaigns merely as struggles 

between opposing wills for domination. At best, it 

represents an ideal case—how the military services 

might wish to fight—which is exactly the wrong approach since ideal cases, by definition, do not occur in 

the real world. On the contrary, a model should derive 

from an analysis of historical practice; it should approximate what typically happens in armed conflict 

and, wherever possible, identify recurring themes for 

the edification and conceptual preparation of practitioners. For that reason, the study of coercion and 

deterrence strategies ought to feature more prominently in professional military education. These strategies also deserve a central place in any official doctrine related to campaign design. 

Although Western democracies rightly defend the 

inviolability of civilian authority over military leadership, political leaders and diplomats will rarely have 

the training, time, or experience to become experts 

in the use of these strategic tools. It thus falls upon 

military professionals to do so. Yet, to be successful, 

military professionals must render their advice in language policymakers find accessible. Otherwise, the 

gap between civilian and military thinking will grow 

ever greater, and eventually the West will find itself 

seriously out-positioned by its rivals. 
42

ENDNOTES

1. A much shorter version of this essay appeared as Antulio J. 

Echevarria II, “How Should We Think about ‘Gray-Zone’ Wars?” 

Infinity Journal, Vol. 5, No. 1, Fall 2015, pp. 16-20.

2. Elizabeth Quintana, “2016 Year Ahead: SDSR 2015 and 

Threats to the UK,” December 2015; available from https://

rusi.org/multimedia/2016-year-ahead-sdsr-2015-and-threats-uk,

accessed January 29, 2016.

3. For the original essay, see Frank G. Hoffman and James 

N. Mattis, “Future Warfare: The Rise of Hybrid Wars,” Proceedings, Vol. 131, No. 11, November 2005, pp. 18-19; admittedly, the 

authors have allowed their definition to evolve freely: Frank Hoffman, Conflict in the 21st Century: The Rise of Hybrid Wars, Arlington, 

VA: Potomac Institute, 2007.

4. Government Accountability Office, Hybrid Warfare, GAO10-1036R, Washington, DC: September 10, 2010, p. 18; the report 

summarizes how each U.S. military service views hybrid warfare.

5. William J. Fanning, Jr., “The Origin of the Term ‘Blitzkrieg’: 

Another View,” Journal of Military History, Vol. 61, No. 2, April 

1997, pp. 283-302. For example, Time magazine referred to the 

German “blitzkrieg” as “an intellectual revolution;” see “Western 

Theater: Battle of Desperation,” Time, June 3, 1940. 

6. Hamilton Fish Armstrong, “The Downfall of France,” Foreign Affairs, Vol. 19, No. 1, October 1940; available from www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/70021/hamilton-fish-armstrong/the-downfallof-france, accessed February 10, 2016.

7. The best work on this is still Robert A. Doughty, Breaking Point: Sedan and the Fall of France, 1940, Hamden, CT: Archon 

Books, 1990. Much has been written on the differences between 

German and French military cultures and organizational structures, but the decisive issue remains how these came together in 

the war plan of 1940.

8. Loosely translated: something that appears to be more than 

it is. 
43

9. On Russian information operations in Ukraine, see Maria 

Snegovaya, Russia Report 1: Putin’s Information Warfare in Ukraine: 

Soviet Origins of Russia’s Hybrid War, Washington, DC: Institute 

for the Study of War, 2015; also, Jolanta Darczewska, The Anatomy of Russian Information Warfare: The Crimean Operation, A Case 

Study, Warsaw: Center for Eastern Studies, May 2014.

10. For convenience, the term “West” is used throughout the 

monograph; for similarities across Western military doctrines, 

see Journal of Strategic Studies, Vol. 38, No. 7, Taylor and Francis, 

Abingdon, Oxford: UK, December 2015.

11. GAO, Hybrid Warfare, p. 16; also Janis Berzins, “Russia’s 

New Generation Warfare in Ukraine: Lessons for Defense Policy,” 

Military Operations, Vol. 2, No. 4, 2014, pp. 4-7.

12. For an example of the diagram’s use, see Woo PyungKyun, “The Russian Hybrid War in the Ukraine Crisis: Some 

Characteristics and Implications,” The Korean Journal of Defense 

Analysis, Vol. 27, No. 3, September 2015, pp. 383–400.

13. James Burk, “Expertise, Jurisdiction, and Legitimacy of 

the Military Profession,” The Future of the Army Profession, Don 

M. Snider and Gayle L. Watkins, eds., New York: McGraw-Hill, 

2002, pp. 19-38.

14. For more information, see: Department of Defense, Beyond 

the Build Delivering Outcomes through Cyberspace The Commander’s Vision and Guidance for US Cyber Command, Fort Mead, MD: 

United States Cyber Command, June 3, 2015; available from www.

defense.gov/Portals/1/features/2015/0415_cyber-strategy/docs/USCyber-Command-Commanders-Vision.pdf, accessed February 10, 

2016; and see information available from www.africom.mil/, accessed 

February 10, 2016.

15. For an example of a recent call for such an assessment, see 

Jacqueline Leo, “America’s Top General Says We’re Not Ready to 

Defeat ISIS,” The Fiscal Times, December 15, 2015; available from 

www.thefiscaltimes.com/2015/12/15/America-s-Top-General-SaysWe-re-Not-Ready-Defeat-ISIS, accessed February 1, 2016.
44

16. Aristotle A. Kallis, Nazi Propaganda and the Second World 

War, New York: Palgrave, 2005. Few studies of the war’s fifth columnists exist compared to those concerning conventional forces; 

Robert Loeffel, The Fifth Column in World War II: Suspected Subversives in the Pacific War and Australia, London and New York: 

Palgrave, 2015.

17. On resistance fighters and revolutionaries in WWII, see 

Williamson Murray and Allan R. Millett, A War to be Won: Fighting the Second World War, Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap, 2000, pp. 

218-223, 405-410; for a survey of irregular fighters, auxiliaries, and 

rebels, see Sibylle Scheipers, Unlawful Combatants: A Genealogy of 

the Irregular Fighter, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015. 

18. For a more detailed analysis of what is and is not new 

in Russian doctrine, see Kristin Ven Bruusgaard, “Crimea and 

Russia’s Strategic Overhaul,” Parameters, Vol. 44, No. 3, Autumn 

2014, pp. 81-90; Tor Bukkvoll, “Military Innovation Under Authoritarian Government—The Case of Russian Special Operations 

Forces,” Journal of Strategic Studies, Vol. 38, No. 5, August 2015, 

pp. 602-625.

19. Richard F. Grimmett, “Instances of Use of United States 

Armed Forces Abroad, 1798-2010,” Congressional Research Service Report for Congress R41677, Washington, DC: 2011, Summary. Most formal uses of U.S. military force did receive congressional authorization; note: covert operations are not included.

20. John Andreas Olsen, John Warden and the Renaissance of 

American Air Power, Washington, DC: Potomac, 2007.

21. The literature in this field is too extensive to list, but readers might begin with Bruce E. Stanley, Outsourcing Security: Private Military Contractors and U.S. Foreign Policy, Washington, DC: 

Potomac, 2015; and Sean McFate, The Modern Mercenary: Private 

Armies and What They Mean for World Order, New York: Oxford 

University, 2014; the Treaty of Westphalia (1648) has received 

too much credit for establishing the principle of sovereignty 

associated with the nation-state.

22. Some prefer the term “cross-domain” coercion, which includes the threatened use of nuclear weapons; see Dimitry (Dima) 

Adamsky, “Cross-Domain Coercion: The Current Russian Art of 
45

Strategy,” Proliferation Papers 54, IFRI Security Studies Center, 

November 2015. Others stress the use of coercion is gradual and 

employs mostly non-military tools; Michael J. Mazzar, Mastering 

the Gray Zone: Understanding a Changing Era of Conflict, Carlisle 

Barracks, PA: USAWC Press-SSI, 2015. Nevertheless, the basic concept is coercion but with an admixture of contemporary 

means.

23. U.S. Special Operations Command White Paper, “The 

Gray Zone,” September 9, 2015; see also Lieutenant General 

(LTG) Charles Cleveland (Ret), Lieutenant Colonel (LTC) Shaw 

Pick, and LTC Stuart Ferris, “Shedding Light on the Gray Zone,” 

ARMY, Vol. 65, No. 9, September 2015, pp. 30-32.

24. Joint Publication 5-0, Joint Operational Planning, Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 2011, pp. III-39; see 

also Antulio J. Echevarria II, “On America’s Way of Battle,” War 

on the Rocks, September 22, 2015.

25. Email exchange with Colonel Scott Kendrick, Chief, Strategic Landpower Task Force, December 9, 2015.

26. Janine Davidson, “Civil-Military Friction and Presidential 

Decision Making: Explaining the Broken Dialogue,” Presidential 

Studies Quarterly Vol. 43, No. 1, March 2013, pp. 129-145.

27. Ted Middleton, “Order and Counter-Order: The European System and Russia,” Parameters 45, No. 3, Autumn 2015, 

pp. 87-102.

28. Carl von Clausewitz, On War, edited and translated by 

Michael Eliot Howard and Peter Paret, Princeton, NJ: Princeton 

University Press, 1984, p. 75, emphasis added.

29. Political warfare resembles psychological warfare, and the 

use of propaganda, and shares some aspects of coercive diplomacy: Paul M. Linebarger, Psychological Warfare, New York: Arno, 

1948; uses of the term include: Carnes Lord and Frank R. Barnett, 

eds., Political Warfare and Psychological Operations: Rethinking the 

US Approach, Washington, DC: National Defense University, 
46

1989; Paul A. Smith, On Political War, Washington, DC: National 

Defense University, 1989. 

30. Clausewitz, On War, p. 149.

31. Alexander L. George, Forceful Persuasion: Coercive Diplomacy as an Alternative to War, Washington, DC: U.S. Institute of 

Peace, 1997; Daniel Byman and Matthew Waxman, The Dynamics 

of Coercion: American Foreign Policy and the Limits of Military Might,

Cambridge: Cambridge University, 2002.

32. Joint Doctrine for Military Operations Other Than War, Joint 

Publication 3-07, Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1995. The acronym MOOTW (military operations other than 

war) was widespread in the 1990s, but has since fallen out of 

favor.

33. Peter Pomerantsev, “The Kremlin’s Information War,” 

Journal of Democracy, Vol. 26, No. 4, October 2015, pp. 40-50; Rod 

Thornton, “The Changing Nature of Modern Warfare: Responding to Russian Information Warfare,” RUSI Journal 160, No. 4, 

August/September 2015, pp. 40-48; Darczewska, The Anatomy of 

Russian Information Warfare.

34. JCIC Briefing, “Analysis, Critique, and Alternatives to 

DoD’s Concept and Description of ‘Shaping’,” July 2015.

35. For a recent treatment of the idea of principles of war, see 

Anthony McIvor, ed., Rethinking the Principles of War, Annapolis, 

MD: Naval Institute Press, 2007.

36. For a broad summary, see Christopher Hemmer, American 

Pendulum: Recurring Debates in U.S. Grand Strategy, Ithaca, NY and 

London: Cornell University Press, 2015.

37. Jakub Grygiel, “Arming Our Allies: The Case for 

Offensive Capabilities,” Parameters, Vol. 45, No. 3, Autumn 2015, 

pp. 39-50.

38. Recent research into drones used in Ukraine suggests 

many were Russian Forpost drones, which are licensed copies of Israeli Searcher drones. Christian Borys, “Exclusive 
47

Access to the Russian Forpost Drone Shot Down in Ukraine,” 

June 13, 2015; available from https://www.bellingcat.com/news/uk

-and-europe/2015/06/13/the-russian-forpost-drone-shot-down-inukraine/, accessed February 1, 2016.

39. Phillip A. Karber, “‘Lessons Learned’ from the RussoUkrainian War: Personal Observations, DRAFT,” Potomac Foundation, July 6, 2015; for a summary of Russian reforms see Gustav 

Gressel, “Russia’s Quiet Military Revolution and What it Means 

for Europe,” Policy Brief 143, European Council on Foreign Relations, October 12, 2015; available from http://www.ecfr.eu/publications/summary/russias_quiet_military_revolution_and_what_it_

means_for_europe4045, accessed February 10, 2016.

40. Interview with Colonel Volodymyr Postrybailo, 

Ukrainian Armed Forces, October 30, 2015.

41. Elisabeth Braw, “Russians Dodge a Bullet: How Young 

Russian Men Avoid Military Service,” Foreign Affairs, November 9, 2015; available from https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/

russian-federation/2015-11-09/russians-dodge-bullet?cid=soc-twrdr, accessed February 1, 2016.

42. Priyanka Boghani, “What’s Been the Effect of Western 

Sanctions on Russia?” Foreign Affairs, January 13, 2015; available 

from www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/whats-been-the-effect-of-west

ern-sanctions-on-russia/, accessed February 1, 2016.

43. Peter E. Harrell, Lessons from Russia for the Future of Sanctions, Washington, DC: Center for a New American Security, 

September 2015. 

44. Peter D. Feaver and Eric B. Lorber, Diminishing Returns? 

The Future of Economic Coercion, Washington, DC: Center for a 

New American Security, November 2015. 

45. Many of the U.S. contributions to these efforts are 

detailed in the U.S. Department of Defense Special Report on 

Atlantic Resolve; available from www.defense.gov/News/SpecialReports/0514_Atlantic-Resolve, accessed February 1, 2016; see also 

LTG Ben Hodges, Commander U.S. Army Europe, Department 

of Defense Briefing on Operation Atlantic Resolve, News Transcript, December 9, 2015; available from www.defense.gov/News/
48

News-Transcripts/Transcript-View/Article/633667/departmentof-defense-press-briefing-by-general-hodges-onoperation-atlantic-re,

accessed February 1, 2016.

46. Studies aimed at understanding Putin’s intentions include: Olga Oliker, Christopher S. Civvis, Keith Crane, Olesya 

Tkacheva, Scott Boston, Russian Foreign Policy in Historical and 

Current Context: A Reassessment, Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2015; 

Benjamin Combo, Russian Motives: An Essay Exploring Russia’s Approach to Crimea and Ukraine, Washington, DC: Center for a New 

American Security, 2015.

47. Igor Sutyagin of RUSI points out Putin prefers to remain 

flexible in accomplishing his strategic objectives; interview in 

London, January 6, 2016.

48 Andrew Monaghan of Chatham House notes Putin has 

been consistent in doing, or attempting to do, what he publically 

announced he would do; interview in London, January 8, 2016.

49. For an example, see Thomas G. Mahnken, Cost-Imposing 

Strategies: A Brief Primer, Washington, DC: Center for New American Security, November 2014, though it was written mainly with 

China in mind.

50. Clausewitz, On War, p. 263.

51. For more see Thomas C. Schelling, Arms and Influence, 

New Haven, CT: Yale University, 2008, pp. 69-79.

52. Robert E. Osgood, Limited War: The Challenge to American Strategy, Chicago, IL: University of Chicago, 1957; and Idem., 

Limited War Revisited, Boulder, CO: Westview, 1979.

53. Schelling, Arms and Influence, pp. 2, 16, 34.

54. For more see Robert Mandel, Coercing Compliance: StateInitiated Brute Force in Today’s World, Stanford, CA: Stanford University, 2015; Lawrence Freedman, ed., Strategic Coercion, Oxford: 

Oxford University Press, 1998; Gordon A. Craig and Alexander L. 

George, Force and Statecraft: Diplomatic Problems in Our Time, 2nd 

Ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990.
49

55. Thomas C. Schelling, The Strategy of Conflict, Cambridge, 

MA: Harvard University, 1960, p. 5; see also Oran Young, The Politics of Force: Bargaining during International Crises, Princeton, NJ: 

Princeton University Press, 1968.

56. Wayne Thompson, “Operations over North Vietnam, 

1965-1973,” in John Andreas Olsen, ed., A History of Air Warfare,

Washington, DC: Potomac, 2010, pp. 107-126; Gian Gentile, “The 

Chimera of Success: Pacification and the End of the Vietnam 

War,” in War Termination, pp. 225-235.

57. George Herring, “America and Vietnam,” Foreign Affairs, 

Vol. 70, No. 5, p. 119.

58. Glenn H. Snyder, Deterrence and Defense: Toward a Theory of 

National Security, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University, 1961.

59. Paul K. Huth, Extended Deterrence and the Prevention of 

War, New Haven, CT: Yale University, 1991. 

60. Henry Kissinger, Diplomacy, New York: Simon & 

Schuster, 1994, p. 608.

61. Alex S. Wilner, Deterring Rational Fanatics, Philadelphia, 

PA: University of Pennsylvania, 2015, pp. 4-7; Matthew Kroenig 

and Barry Pavel, “How to Deter Terrorism,” The Washington Quarterly, Vol. 35, No. 2, Spring 2012, pp. 21-36.

62. Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs, Fact Sheet, “U.S. 

Relations with Taiwan,” February 12, 2015; available from www.

state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/35855.htm, accessed February 1, 2016.

63. Experts disagree on the proper terminology for the strategy; compare: M. Taylor Fravel and Christopher P. Twomey, 

“Projecting Strategy: The Myth of Counter-Intervention,”

Washington Quarterly, Vol. 37, No. 4, Winter 2015, pp. 171-187,

and Michael Carl Haas, “China: Exit Counter-Intervention,

Enter Peripheral Defense,” The Diplomat, March 4, 2015;

available from www.thediplomat.com/2015/03/china-exit-counterintervention-enter-peripheral-defense/, accessed February 1, 2016.
64. For the American view, see: General Counsel of the Department of Defense, Department of Defense Law of War Manual,

Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Defense, June 2015; Bryan 

Frederick and David E. Johnson, The Continued Evolution of U.S. 

Law of Armed Conflict Implementation: Implications for the U.S. 

Military, Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2015.

65. Terence Kelly, Anthony Atler, Todd Nichols, Lloyd 

Thrall, Employing Land-Based Anti-Ship Missiles in the Western 

Pacific, Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2013. 

66. For an argument denying an arms race is underway in the 

region, review the Brookings Event Podcast “Is There an Arms 

Race in East Asia?” November 17, 2015; note: this argument places 

the bar too high as far as what qualifies as an arms race, namely, 

defense spending equal to 8% or more of GDP.

50
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