GREY ZONE WARFARE & RECALIBRATING LEADERSHIP

The geopolitical conflicts in current era reflect inclination by some countries to gradually but structurally divide the global or regional alliances and norms to a degree not even seen during the cold war period. This art of conflict prompting switch from declaration of direct war is known as grey-zone warfare in which states conduct activities that seldom pass the threshold of war.

As a keen observer of new and unique warfare technologies and strategies, I believe the Grey Zone exists somewhere between peace and war, where opponents successively orchestrate conflicts using all possible components of power to achieve socio – political and economic instability and thus minimizing the risks of engaging in a direct and a kinetic warfare. Therefore, the actions initiated in a Grey Zone campaign are deliberately ambiguous and deceptive but leave the target country to choose between reluctant acceptance or escalation.

The occupation of Ukraine by Russian, the expansion of Chinese control in the South China Sea and increased presence of various powers in Indo – Pacific regions are nothing but the examples of this hybrid, asymmetric and unconventional Grey Zone Warfare.

So, the question arises as to what are the characteristics of this warfare? Having carefully observed the conflict zone over past two decades, I would lay down four of them.

Firstly, it has a long-term confrontational nature by an aggressor state which consists of series of sustained applications over time of a hybrid nature to destabilise the target country as is seen on our Northern borders with China.

Secondly, the strategies chosen are often unthinkable until they are executed as these are highly innovative, deceptive and therefore, difficult to detect and monitor.

Thirdly, often identification and accountability of authorship is impossible as means of cyberspace disinformation is used to implement them.

Due to the difficulty in identification of the attacker and the small size of the obscurity created, the aggressor manipulates and avoids major reactions from the target country and progressively feeds into their strategic advantage. Fourthly, the aggressor will frequently change the narrative using propaganda for interfering in the political, social, or economic life of his adversary aimed at, attrition and coercion.

India has to guard against China who’s exponentially increasing investment in developing African states, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bhutan, Myanmar, Bangladesh and now Maldives appears to be checking the rise of India as a power to reckon with in Afro – Asian region.

So, do we need to recalibrate and sensitise our national and military leadership to this new era of warfare? The simple answer is a YES. As far as Military leadership goes, it needs to rethink on the resources required for longoverdue modernization for a prolonged war zone to meet the challenges of hybrid warfare in the grey zone arena.

For Considering new theories of victory and to deter and defeat coercion, land grab and asymmetric warfare, the Army needs greater use of denial strategies to make coercion and territorial revisionism prohibitively costly for the enemy rather than relying on ex post facto punishment. We need to not just mitigate such attacks but keep the adversary in a reactive mode. India needs to effectively counter China’s salami-slicing tactics as seen in Ladakh region as it had countered death by hundred cuts strategy in the past.

More than the military leadership, it is the national leadership that is desired to step up and become prepared at defeating adversaries by effective non kinetic tactics in this complex, uncertain, volatile, and vague environment. The overwhelming speed at which technological and social changes are occurring, it is more essential than ever before for national leadership and bureaucratic processes to become more efficient, so as to keep the defence machinery well lubricated to meet these challenges and achieve the superiority to dominate the arena of grey war zone. We can no longer enjoy the luxury to work in stovepipes or silos while feeding into inter – se superiority within central services cadres. It’s the demand of the hour to work more collaboratively with the CDS heading the vertical.

To conclude, I shall emphasise that the solution to challenges from adversaries is no more a military domain but a political and national one based on the requirements for building a strong state capacity and legitimacy. In building this resilience, the country needs to envision a wider end state in which the application of non-violent techniques such as civilmilitary activities, social media operations and public affairs are more productive than the direct military action.

THE VIEWS EXPRESSED BY THE AUTHOR ARE PERSONAL

Col Anupam Jaitly (R) The writer is defence expert, motivational speaker and corporate trainer