However, together they expose critical weaknesses in the West’s conception of war. The Gray Zone is characterized by intense political, economic, informational, and military competition more fervent in nature than normal steady-state diplomacy, yet short of conventional war. Command is embarking upon a yearlong research project entitled The Gray Zone. Israel has four options in dealing with the Hamas’s gray-zone warfare: (1) preserve the status quo and maintain the strategy of the limited military operations, (2) intensify the quality and quantity of Hamas targets during limited military operations, (3) engage in large-scale military operations, or … 6 Ibid., 37. Gray-zone strategies are designed precisely to impose such quandaries on custodians of an existing order. The U.S. Special Operations Command defines grey zone challenges as “competitive interactions among and within state and non-state actors that fall between the traditional war and peace duality.” In the words of Gen. Joseph Votel et. The gray zone is defined 5 Frank G. Hoffman, Hybrid Warfare and hallenges, _ Joint Force Quarterly 52 (2009): 35. Make no mistake—gray zone approaches seek to achieve the fruits of war, in the form of territorial gains, and revision of existing regional and international arrangements. The project aims to give the US government the tools to understand gray zone threats and create effective responses to them. That is not to imply there is zero chance for miscalculation — just that the PLA’s growing gray zone confidence reduces its reliance on military might to secure a favorable resolution. Gray zone conflict is aggression, but military tools are only part of the response The foregoing points touch on a sixth issue. None of these meas-ures is novel, except in the ways each has been en-hanced by new technologies. The editor-in-chief of The Grayzone, Max Blumenthal is an award-winning journalist and the author of several books, including best-selling Republican Gomorrah, Goliath, The Fifty One Day War, and The Management of Savagery.He has produced print articles for an array of publications, many video reports, and several documentaries, including Killing Gaza. Importantly, our conceptualization of the threat did not predispose us to a particular strategy. Figure 1: Use of Force Against Threats in the Gray Zone THE STRATEGY OPTIONS—TENTATIVE CONCEPTUAL FINDINGS To objectively determine the most effective military strategy for use of force in the gray zone we evaluated four strategies. In this report, the authors examine how the United States might respond to Russian and Chinese efforts to seek strategic advantage through coercive actions in the gray zone, including military, diplomatic, informational, and economic tactics. which cross military, economic, informational, and diplomatic lines have been labeled, rather poorly, as “hybrid” or “gray zone” wars. 'A way to unravel our democracy from inside' General Sir Nick Carter, the head of the UK armed forces, described the risk to nations like the UK if attacks in the grey zone go unchallenged. In the context of the recent Skripal poisoning and repeated cyber attacks, much has been made of the new 'grey zone' between states where hybrid or asymmetric warfare is conducted. However, as John Raine argues, the ever widening list of actions viewed as belligerent increases the likelihood of escalation. It is hardly new, however.