Strategy in the 21st Century

[Bill Moore]

https://www.defenseone.com/ideas/201...seone_today_nl

This short article is the most concise, yet comprehensive description of the gray zone or competition short of armed conflict that I have seen.

augmenting their substantial political, economic, military, and commercial capabilities, Beijing and Moscow are mastering the “weaponization of everything” to achieve exploitable hypercompetitive advantages vis-à-vis the United States. Their “hammers” range from political coercion, predatory economics and strategic extortion, to information warfare and subversion, covert action, and overt disregard for international norms.

We need to expand our view of multi-domain warfare to address other domains beyond the doctrinal ones and compete in those domains short of armed conflict. These strategies are hardly new in the historical sense, but the U.S. has become an astrategic nation. As the article states, we have failed to adapt to a post U.S. primacy world. I would add we subconsciously cling to the "End of History" myth and over emphasize the value of soft power as a means and way to an end.

Our adversaries decisively and deliberately maneuver and compete in domains beyond maritime, land, space, air, and cyber to achieve their policy aims over time (extended battles that require strategic patience). In contrast, the U.S. military national defense strategy narrowly focuses on improving lethality in the doctrinal domains, while our adversaries execute sophisticated whole of society campaigns to achieve their ends that largely neutralize our conventional military power.

The article accurately points out we are not even on the defense, much less the offense. However, once we wake up to the growing threat presented by these competitors to our way of life and internal stability, I believe we have the ability to prevail in this competition, yet time is not on our side.

As warlike behavior migrates into new competitive spaces – strategic influence, commerce, culture, domestic politics, cyberspace, space, and the electromagnetic spectrum — the U.S. government and private sector must recognize the far-reaching and growing hazards of hypercompetition and rival gray-zone strategies. The boundaries between war and peace, battlefield and market, and adversary and competitor are dissolving. If the United States is to effectively compete for position and influence in this turbulent and dangerous environment, it requires an urgent meeting of the minds to bring a more collaborative stance to hypercompetitive great-power rivalry.