Global Competition and Conflict Project China Futures Study
Abstract
The Competitive Zone (or Gray Zone) is an operational environment churning with political, economic, and security competitions that require constant attention. Given Russia's military actions in eastern Ukraine and Chinas expansion in the South China Sea, military and academic communities have attempted to describe conflict in the Gray Zone to create shared understanding and spur discussion on conflict and competition in this space.1The Competitive Zone is further described as a conceptual space between peace and war, occurring when actors purposefully use single or multiple elements of power to achieve political-security objectives with activities that are typically ambiguous or cloud attribution and exceed the threshold of ordinary competition, yet intentionally fall below the level of large-scale direct military conflict, and threaten US and allied interests by challenging, undermining, or violating international customs, norms, or laws.In 2018, the Joint Staff J-39 Strategic Multilayer Assessment (SMA) initiated the Global Competition and Conflict (GCC) Project which sought to answer the following overarching question: How might the US strategize to defend global interests across the spectrum of cooperation to competition and conflict through the coming decade? This requirement also included a request that the J-39 SMA coordinate with the TRADOC G-2 Modeling and Simulations Directorate (MSD) to explore options for employing the Athena Simulation in support of this SMA Project.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Oct 01, 2019
- Accession Number
- AD1089514