WASHINGTON DC: The U.S. military is still powerful. Maybe the world’s strongest military. But the words ‘grey zone’ seem to cause the entire force and the Commander-in-Chief and his staff to short circuit.
You may have seen the recent headlines like “Philippines and Chinese coast guard ships collide in South China Sea” (NBC news) and “China, Philippines accuse each other of ramming ships in South China Sea” (Reuters). Seeing those headlines, you might think what happened was an incident in which both parties—or no one—was at fault.
What actually happened was Chinese ships entered Philippines waters and deliberately attacked a Filipino ship. Why isn’t the U.S., a defence treaty ally of the Philippines responding to this and the many other attacks by China? It’s that magic incantation that paralyzes Americans: grey zone.
The U.S. military is still powerful. Maybe the world’s strongest military.
But the words “grey zone” seem to cause the entire force and the Commander-in-Chief and his staff to short circuit.
WHAT IS ‘GREY ZONE’?
Grey zone is usually invoked when an adversary does something that harms us, sometimes seriously, but we don’t figure it’s worth going to war over.
It could be Chinese ships and aircraft interfering—brazenly and often dangerously—with US military ships and aircraft going about their business in the South China Sea.
Or, as seen repeatedly over the last 18 months, the Chinese ramming and water-cannoning America’s Filipino allies trying to resupply their own ships in their own territory.
Just call this “grey zone” and the Americans act as if they can’t respond. As if it’s a choice between doing nothing, doing nothing much, or thermonuclear war.
We tell ourselves this is just the Chinese “acting up” rather than what it is: acts of war.
Yes, it’s at the lower end of the conflict spectrum, but the other side doesn’t make such neat distinctions. It’s all “war” to them—even if there’s no shooting involved.
And, if they do these grey zone operations right, “kinetic” warfare is much easier when the time comes, or may not even be necessary.
CHINA’S GREY ZONE WINS
Through these operations China is improving its position and capabilities while weakening its enemies and their allies—not least psychologically. It creates a sense of helplessness, bafflement, inevitable defeat.
And American reliability is being shredded.
For most of the last 30 years, the Americans even convinced themselves that the PRC wasn’t much of a threat if “grey zone” was all they could do. Thus, no need to get America’s own defences in order.
This reflects two different conceptions of war. Americans require gun play and an official statement that we’re at war. Until then, we reckon there’s still a chance to make friends and are inclined to overlook all sorts of unfriendly behaviour.
The Chinese Communists, however, see war as a spectrum involving a range of actions that harm and disadvantage the enemy—setting it up for defeat—and most of those activities don’t involve “kinetic” activity (i.e. shooting).
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