Irregular Warfare Podcast - Gray Zone—The Alliance is the Message

Episode Date: May 19, 2023

Be sure to visit the Irregular Warfare Initiative website to see all of the new articles, podcast episodes, and other content the IWI team is producing! In the blurred spaces between peace and war, a contest over influence plays out. But how is the contest won? What are the components of an effective strategy in this gray zone? What role do irregular warfare campaigns play? And how do strong alliances enable these campaigns? This episode explores these questions and more, specifically looking at the competition for influence in the Indo-Pacific region, where China’s gray zone strategy is in competition with a network of actors, among which the strong US-Australia is a prominent feature. Hosts Adam Darnley-Stuart and Julia McClenon are joined by Clementine Starling, director of the Atlantic Council’s Forward Defense program, and Australian Senator David Van. Intro music: "Unsilenced" by Ketsa Outro music: "Launch" by Ketsa CC BY-NC-ND 4.0

I think it's easily demonstrable that China is at war with Taiwan. You never do anything alone. You do not fight your hardest challenges on your own. We're seeing democracy eroded right across the Indo-Pacific region. And until we really start to push back on some of that with some actual actions, not just words, I think we're really going to struggle as we go forward. Welcome to episode 79 of the Irregular Warfare podcast. I'm your host, Adam Darnley-Stewart, and my co-host today is Julie McLennan. This episode is the first in a series of podcasts dedicated to Project Grey Zone. Today's episode is the first in a series of podcasts dedicated to Project

Grey Zone. Today's episode explores the relationship between Australia and the United States and is focused on China's grey zone activities in the Indo-Pacific. Our guests begin by defining the grey zone and what is meant by the term influence. They then discuss examples of China's grey zone strategy in the context of global security challenges. Our guests conclude with recommendations on why the alliance between Australia and the United States is critical in effectively competing in the gray zone. Clementine Starling is the director of the Atlantic Council's Forward Defense Program. Clementine's 2021 strategy paper, Seizing the Advantage, a Vision for the Next U.S. National Defense Strategy,

is the focus of this podcast. David Vann is a liberal senator for Victoria. During his time in the Senate, David has spoken in chambers extensively on foreign affairs, defense and trade, energy, and the environment. David is the deputy chair of the subcommittee on foreign affairs and aide of the joint standing committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade, as well as Deputy Chair of the Senate Standing Committee for the Scrutiny of Delegated Legislation. You are listening to the Irregular Warfare podcast, dedicated to bridging the gap between scholars and practitioners to support the community of irregular warfare professionals. Here is our conversation with Senator David Vann and Clementine Starling. David, Clementine, welcome to the Regular Warfare Podcast. Hi there, Adam. Thank you so much for having me, especially paired with such an amazing guest such as Clementine. So it's wonderful

to be here joining you from Melbourne, Australia. Thank you so much. It's so wonderful to be here and join you all. Equally as thrilled to be a part of this conversation. I'm joining from Washington, DC. Clementine, in your 2021 paper, Seizing the Advantage, a vision for the next US national defence strategy, you recommend the DoD orientate to focus more on the grey zone. Could you start by explaining exactly what grey zone is and why it's relevant during times of competition? Yeah, happy to. So just a little bit of background on the report. My team and I write a US national defence strategy about every four years, depending on the change of the US administration, to lay out what we think should be the US strategic level goals. So prioritization of threat, assumptions of what the security environment looks like today, but also projecting forward

into the future, and really trying to outline a blueprint for aligning actions across the US Department of Defense with that list of strategic priorities. So as you noted, in our 2021 report, which preceded the Biden administration's NDS, we really kind of built on some ideas that were put forward in the 2018 NDS that was put together by the Trump administration. So that, as I'm sure some of you remember, characterized this shift in the security environment towards great power competition. And I think that really reflected this bipartisan acknowledgement in the US about the need to move away from about two decades of counterterrorism efforts in the Middle East, now towards this two major near peer competitor environment that the US is facing

with China and Russia. So that really laid the groundwork for asking the question, well, what does that competition look like? So before the Biden team released their NDS, my team and I ran analysis on not only the very traditional conventional military threats posed by China, But we set out to unpack the more untraditional, non-physical, non-kinetic, harder to measure ways that China and Russia are competing below the threshold of armed conflict to achieve their strategic goals. So we set up a grey zone task force at the Atlantic Council to really get at that problem. So to answer your question, when I seek to define what the grey zone is, I see it visually as a spectrum of activities and intent.

So you've got on the far left, cooperation, on the far right, armed conflict and warfare, and then in the middle is the grey zone. So that's everything in between. So adversarial competition below armed conflict. And that's really described in US joint doctrine as the competition continuum is the kind of term for it. But the way I really see the gray zone is it's a term used to describe sets of often overlapping activities kind of in that middle space. So ranging from diplomatic, informational, military, economic efforts to achieve one's strategic objectives. Sometimes those activities can be clandestine, covert, unofficial, or outside of accepted norms of behavior, which I think is probably a key

theme that we'll touch on today. And really, the activities are aimed at undermining the security of the target entity or projecting the interests of the actor, but without triggering active armed conflict. Thank you so much, Clementine, for getting us started there. David I want to turn it over to you in case you have anything to add that you think is important as far as defining what exactly we're talking about when we reference grey zone and to hit you with a one-two punch on this question if you could explain why understanding the grey zone is important from your perspective right from a perspective of an Indo-Pacific nation like Australia. Yes, thanks so much, Julia. As both a policymaker and a student

of irregular warfare, I'm sitting in a unique place down here in Australia because we're seeing this grey zone activity happening in our backyard. And in fact, our country has experienced it. And Clementine was exactly right. There's this spectrum. And we, with our, include our allies and partners in this, have been looking at grey zone activities in completely the wrong way. And it's what I think has led to us being a little bit blind to what's been happening in the region. There is clearly grey zone activities happening down here in the Indo-Pacific, the South China Sea, the East China Sea. It's even happening to Australia, where we're seeing geoeconomic coercion, which I'd put on that spectrum, happening to us as a nation. We've seen all sorts of trade barriers, non-trade barriers put up, which I think is very much part of that grey zone.

For a country like Australia, the activities are really hitting home and have done over the last few years. So like Clementine, I see the grey zone as not just the little green men in Crimea. We've been seeing the Chinese use grey zone tactics over the last two decades with their maritime militia, their cyber militias. There's been a lot of activity that has happened over the last, especially 10 years, but probably going back, I could argue even going back to the Civil War in China where they've been using these same sort of tactics. They were a tactic of Mao Zedong, and your listeners shouldn't forget that. So these aren't new tactics for some of our competitors. This question is for both of you. Whether you see grey zone activities as necessarily something new, or is this something that is an extension of some of the existing communist tactics that we saw

during the middle of the 20th century? What's new about it and maybe what's old? So what's new about the grey zone? I think in some ways, nothing, but in a lot of ways, a lot of new things. So what do I mean by that? I think the more prevalent use of the grey zone as terminology does not indicate a novelty in the nature of warfare per se, but more how competition is characterized. So we saw active measures being used by Russia throughout the Cold War. David just touched on, there are tons of examples of forms of irregular warfare being used by China well before today. But I think what is probably slightly different about the way we are characterizing the gray zone or hybrid conflict or activities in that space today is that technology

has enabled us to do more at pace across domains that we couldn't do so before. So that has, I think, opened up many more tools in both our toolboxes, but also the toolboxes of our adversaries that seek to undercut US, Australian, other countries' interests abroad without needing to take physical or kinetic action. And so I think that has complicated our picture of where the lines of peace stop and where the lines of warfare start. And so not new, but I think a lot more complex in a modern age of having very digital lives where we are quite technology dependent. And I think it's enabled quite new approaches that we're still really learning how to grapple with. Thanks, Clementine. I think that was a

great response. And as I alluded to earlier, I don't think gray zone is new at all. You know, I can take people back to lots of different tactics being used over decades, whether you say it was during the Cold War or even during the Cultural Revolution. More recently, there has been lots of that. I think what is new, and this is where I think the Irregular Warfare Institute should take some credit, is educating policymakers like myself in that irregular warfare exists. Because I think we, by we, I mean that Western countries and friends and allies have been a little bit blind to it and blindsided by it. There is no doubt that some of our competitors have been actively working against us. They just haven't been firing bullets or dropping bombs.

So we've seen the Indo-Pacific change dramatically over the last couple of decades, or even you can take it back to the Vietnam War. It's a real thing that we're seeing now, and that policymakers really need to be alive to, because if we don't, as Clementine argues in her paper, if we don't start taking actions, and possibly offensive actions, not just defensive actions, against grey zone tactics, all of a sudden, like we have seen, you know, our region or our world can change very, very quickly. Thanks, David, for those insightful comments. We'll switch now to a central theme of today's

discussion. What is influence and why does it matter for the grey zone? Yeah, that's a great question. So by influence, I mean one's ability to convince others of what they want them to do, or the ways in which they want them to see things. So we often characterize influence as it's the hearts and minds piece, right, of one's population. And so China and Russia both have refined their ability to shape domestic perceptions through social media manipulation, censorship, you know, absolute control in a lot of ways of popular media in their own states. And the vast amounts of data collected through technology platforms and new technology tools that are now at almost every country's disposal, I think have really extended our reach and ability to approach influence

operations in new ways. So I think for China, from the influence operations side, not losing face and projecting a positive image of China to the rest of the world remains very important for the CCP. But in recent years, under Xi Jinping, in particular, I think Beijing has become increasingly comfortable with infiltration and coercion as part of its influence operations. I think Taiwan and Hong Kong really constitute like laboratories for Beijing's political warfare. We've seen traditional Chinese media penetrating kind of Taiwan, private cyber armies, the use of local intermediaries to really carry messages forward that Taiwan is a part of China, it is a better off reunified. So I think the types of influence operations, information operations that we've seen Chinese

have evolved over time and have become quite more aggressive. There's a very interesting report that was put out by IRSEM, the French MODD's research institute, actually, that I would recommend everybody takes a read of. It looks at the ways in which China's influence operations have increasingly become more like Moscow's and some of the sharing of the playbooks between the two countries. That's a really interesting report to look at for those interested in understanding China's influence operations better. I think the way Clementine described it as the democratisation of technology is one of the keys here.

If it wasn't for cyber, I don't think we would have even started seeing grey zones as quickly as we have, or not that I think it's been that quick. But then that's also given us the ability to see this misinformation, disinformation as part of irregular warfare. It's become apparent. I sat on a Senate select committee looking at foreign interference through

social media. It's an ongoing committee and inquiry, but we're always hearing just mind-boggling accounts of misinformation and disinformation and things that I think if our countrymen were alive to, you know, they'd be seeing the world in a whole different way. Here in Australia, we've seen protests from the other side of the world all of a sudden explode here and I can't see it as being organic. So therefore, you know, you have to look at what the effect is. And if the effect is disunifying our people, sowing disharmony, making people argue against each other, but not in the old-fashioned, polite, debating way, but sowing real hate and divide and almost disintegration of our nations. It's really dangerous. It's really dangerous. And as a

policymaker, I'm so scared if we're not tackling this front on all day, every day, then we're doing something wrong. I think you have a very vehemently agreeing audience with you here today and likely in our podcast listeners as well. And so grateful that you're able to speak frankly about these issues. We know that our adversaries, particularly the two that we're all pointing to right now, that our adversaries, particularly the two that we're all pointing to right now, don't view the world, let alone warfare, the same as we do. And so you could detail the argument as to why we may already be at war with China over Taiwan in the gray zone. Yeah, sure. So I think it's a really important question as to are we at war already? And I think the answer to that probably varies based on your perspective, even within a single nation. And I

completely agree that cultural differences and concepts of warfare absolutely vary among states. I think in the US, or perhaps in Western terms in general, we'd probably shy away from saying that we're at war with China. Maybe saying we're not at war with China yet, but we are in a competition. And we are in conflict in key ways. But that's not necessarily how China views it. it. So in 1999, two Chinese military strategists penned a paper called Unrestricted Warfare, which I'm sure some of your listeners are familiar with. And they took their observations of the US victory in the Gulf War, which demonstrated the utter preponderance of the US military. And what they took away from that was, why would you compete with the US conventionally, And what they took away from that was, why would you compete with the US conventionally, militarily, when you don't have a chance of winning that way? So instead, move the fight against the US off the military battlefield and build asymmetric advantages in other areas where you can get a one-up on the US and its allies. So in that paper, they proposed the continuous use of

non-military operations to compensate for US conventional military superiority. And then that concept was followed in 2003, I think it was, I might get my dates wrong, by the three warfares concept, which really zeroed in on information-related warfare using psychological, public opinion, and legal means. So I say all of that to really demonstrate that I think perception is immensely key when we approach this question. Understanding the history, the mindset, the doctrine and priorities of a potential adversary are really, really important for deterrence. And I think help us get our understanding that whether or not we think we're at war, if an adversary believes that we are within their concept of what warfare means, then that better make us sit up and pay attention.

Great points there, Clementine. And I'll take it a step further. I agree with you, I don't think we're at war with China as yet. But I argued in a paper I wrote last year that I think it's easily demonstrable that China is at war with Taiwan. There's lots of evidence, both grey zone and sub-military, paramilitary, that they have taken steps that can only be construed as aggressive towards Taiwan. We're seeing right at the moment, after the president's visit to the States, that these tactics, which are purely military, are being done to intimidate Taiwan, send very strong messages. And what I assume our intelligence services are seeing a lot more than we are, that's happening behind the scenes, especially in cyber,

et cetera. There is a lot of evidence out there that China has been at war with Taiwan, or more that the war never stopped. After the nationalists fled to Taiwan, there was no armistice. There was no treaty. So in some ways you could say that the Revolutionary War continued and has continued nonstop to this day. I think what we're seeing now is a change of tempo in that war. Clearly Xi has said that he wants a unified Taiwan. He sees that as part of his legacy.

So there's a lot of evidence that he's a unified Taiwan. He sees that as part of his legacy. So there's a lot of evidence that he's moving on that. Certainly, all the preparation that we're seeing going on, the buildup of their military, all their other capabilities and misinformation, disinformation, that makes me nervous. If you see someone looking to hit you, you want to either be ready to duck or to hit back. Both very insightful regarding not always to look at it from a Western-centric view, the complex problems we face, but to truly understand our competitors so they potentially don't turn into adversaries. Or when they do turn into adversaries, we're positioned right to actually combat them wherever, whenever in the world.

So when we think about the triangle of Russia, Iran and China, the types of violence they pursue during competition are the ones we're likely to see pursued later on in competition. Yes, I think violence is used outside of, I suppose, what you can necessarily characterize as warfare. There are probably different forms of intimidation, coercion that we see demonstrated by some kind of main adversaries in the security environment from China, from Russia. I think Russia today is a really stark example of obviously there is a live conflict going on within Ukraine, waged by Russia. And, you know, arguably, a lot of us didn't really see it coming, despite a lot of kind of warning signs in 2008 and beyond in Georgia

and Ukraine itself. So I think one of the concerns and difficulties when we talk about the grey zone is that competition continuum. I don't think it should be viewed chronologically. There is not necessarily linear development from cooperation through competition up to armed conflict. The reality is that it's a spatial concept, that we do see grey zone activities take place alongside armed conflict alongside cooperation and multiple types of activities can be taking place across different domains some military and some non-traditional domains and in different parts of the globe all at the same time and I think what this gets at is one of the major challenges of the grey zone itself, which is not the concept that it is new, but that it includes coercive when an actor is seeking to change the status quo in a way that will negatively impact you. And two, it makes it harder to determine whose area

of responsibility across the government or private sector it is to respond to that threat. So who has the authorities to do what and when? So I think often armed conflict, violence is an easier thing to diagnose. It is an easier thing to know where your left and right limits are to respond to. I'm not saying it is easy or should be downplayed in terms of the very real human costs associated with it. But I think in a lot of ways, we know how to respond to a lot of different types of military plans, operations. We have operational plans for a lot of different types of military scenarios. We don't have that for the types of activities that take place in the gray zone, because it's very, very difficult to characterize the types of actions

taking place, to piece all of the elements of the puzzle together, to really understand how what is happening in one region in one part of the world with perhaps the Wagner Group in Africa has implications for what Russia can be doing in Europe. And so I think what I've found is that lack of ownership of tracking and analysing those below threshold actions taking place globally, as well as a lack of clarity of the entity that's meant to be leading on the response to those actions, that has resulted in us not being very responsive or holistic in our approaches to countering grey zone activities. Our militaries are very used to having rules of engagement. If someone shoots at me,

I'm allowed to fire back. Yet it really took, I think, cyber warfare to bring to mind that we might be attacked without a bullet being fired. Now, we've seen, as Clementine alluded to earlier, Russia and Ukraine, whether it was Georgia, Chechnya, then into the Ukraine, we've seen, as Clementine alluded to earlier, Russia and Ukraine, whether it was Georgia, Chechnya, then into Ukraine, we've seen similar tactics used and it's incredibly damaging and weakening to a target country, if you like, or a target population without actual kinetic warfare. And until we as policymakers and defense planners start looking at okay well this is happening where else should i be looking for some of these effects and i think it's the effect that you have to look for not the smoking gun i think when you're looking at foreign interference especially

there and in cyber like if you see a dead body with a bullet hole in it you don't need a smoking gun to know that someone's shot someone. And this is an analogy that I use particularly in that foreign interference space. It's a real thing. And until we're alive to all these, not just the effects, but looking at the motivations or where might this lead us to, we missed all the signals in the South China Sea over the last couple of decades, where there was arguably real violence going on, whether it was against Vietnamese fishing fleets, Filipino ships, etc. These are all real examples of what were probably above grey zone, but because they were done by non-military actors, there wasn't a strong response. Or maybe there just wasn't the will to respond when it was so

far away. It was these land formations that, well, who really cares about them? What do they mean? And especially, you know, Xi was lying to Obama about what was going on and then just came out and did it anyway. You have to look at the effect, not the words, not the insubstantial parts of it. Noting that IW is population-centric and all focused on influencing population for the outcomes of national security, are there any specific types of operations, activities or initiatives you think the USA and Australia should be focusing on now in the Indo-Pacific, specifically in the grey zone? I think we need to be able to step it up and really start ensuring that when one of our adversaries or some of our adversaries do something against our national interests, that we're really prepared to shoot back.

And I don't mean that in a physical sense. That could be in a cyber sense, could be in a misinformation, taking financial actions. We're seeing democracy eroded right across the Indo-Pacific region. And until we really start to push back on some of that with some actual actions, not just words, I think we're really going to struggle as we go forward. I think we've lost a lot of time until we saw this as a regular warfare and seeing a regular warfare as warfare. So, you. So I think it's now incumbent on all of our governments to work together, to take proper steps to ensure that our enemies and our adversaries are focusing on the fact that we know what they're doing, we see it as being wrong,

and we'll take steps to correct that. I agree with David a great deal on this. I think the reality is you cannot prioritize everything. Determining the areas where we are most at risk and the areas in which are most important to shape and compete against in the gray zone is really important here. And David touched on this in terms of defensive forms of activities and operations versus offensive activities and on operations. And this, of course, looks different depending on the tool of statecraft that you are using. But I think it's a really important point. So I start with the defensive piece of this. I think your priority number one has to be on the things that are most integral to the survival of your nation, of statehood.

I think we've all heard in the irregular warfare and gray zone spaces that the use of the term resilience, building societal resilience against the types of vulnerabilities that gray zone activities tend to attack. So that is ensuring the integrity of your elections, public trust in institutions, that government can function well and people trust that it will function, access to core needs, energy, food supplies, that that is not disrupted. And then I think as the US and Australia think about ways in which we are supporting our allies and partners in the Indo-Pacific in particular, I think that creates a very good baseline for ensuring that influence is kept at bay in those areas. But then there is the other side of this, which is shaping the grey zone environment in and of itself and being more proactive.

And I think there is where there are a range of different priorities that you could choose. I think for the US, technology, technology competition and maintaining the US's edge is a key long-term goal in competition with China. So tackling supply chain issues that are vulnerable to adversarial exploitation, including industrial espionage, intellectual property theft, cyber attacks, all of those I think are key, key areas. And then I think a kind of third way that I look at this is really challenging us to view the activities that the US and Australia and others do in the grey zone ourselves through a slightly different lens. And I think what all of this has highlighted is the importance of civil and commercial partnerships as a real cornerstone

for responses in the grey zone. Clementine's right about building national resilience. That's incredibly important. And my late great colleague, Senator Jim Molan, Major General, retired. He and I did a lot of work in this space. And he left us earlier this year, which is a big hole in the Senate and amongst all of us. So we need to build that national resilience piece. But I think we've got to walk and chew gum at the same time. And Clementine's idea of strategic simultaneity is really important here because it's not only what we're doing, but we also need to look across our region because it's not hard to find evidence that our competitors are outpacing us in other parts of the region. You just have to look at the Western Pacific, all of the Indo-Pacific, countries that are being coerced by Belt and Road,

debt trap, other forms of breaking down of their civil societies for the military ends of our adversaries. As I said, I'm Deputy Chair of the Foreign Affairs and Aid Subcommittee. What we're seeing in the Pacific at the moment, our adversaries will use tools to help their case that we will never use. The obvious one is corruption. So how do we call out corruption without changing the soft power politics of what we need to do? And there's a lot of ways that we can build up the societies in our near neighbours

that are so important for our security, not just theirs. And it's not ever just about Australia's security, it's about the region's. So how do we either call out this corruption or do we use information techniques or cyber techniques just to take that money away again, such that the reward's not left on the table and that people realise if we go down a path of taking corruption and losing our democracies because of it, that there will be costs. And if we're not imposing costs on our adversaries, we can't say we're deterring them from taking those actions again. So in our 2020 Defence Strategic Update, we moved to the concept of shape, deter, respond.

I don't think we're doing nearly enough yet. And I'll say this across all of our partners as well. We need to be doing more on the shape and deter. Yes, we need to be ready to respond, but I think we're better off investing far more in that shaping and deterring element. The other key element, I think, as part of this conversation around the population-centric nature of grey zone activities and the influence piece and how you actually go about building societal resilience and that you're going to define that differently nation by nation, right? But I think we really start to think about this as how we go about supporting allies and partners across the globe in their building of societal

resilience. I think one major area we cannot overlook is education. The Baltic states, I think, have had a very, very interesting history, of course, of Russian influence, both during the Cold War, after the Cold War. It never went away. It's ongoing. both during the Cold War, after the Cold War. It never went away. It's ongoing. And I think the emphasis there is some of the models that they have used to educate their own populations on what are these types of activities? What do you need to look for? What does influence look like? What does intimidation look like? I think David has said it well a couple of times in this podcast that we've lost some time in seeing irregular warfare, seeing graves and activities as what they are. And I think that education piece is something that we need to continue to really, really work out.

It's all well and good to look at the capability development aspects of this, the potential technology solutions that we have to some of these challenges, but none of it will work effectively if we can't convince our own populations that there is a challenge first and foremost, that they are a part of helping us collectively develop the antibodies to be able to mitigate the effects of the kinds of influence that are trying to be achieved. I do want to pivot us back to something that David had started leading us over to, and that's the idea of alliances, getting into our government to government partnerships, right? And so, obviously, the alliance between the United States and Australia is a key and unique strength when confronting the adversaries that we're

talking about in the Indo-Pacific. David, I wonder what your thoughts are regarding this alliance's greatest strength to effectively compete within the gray zone in some of the ways that we're talking about today. Yeah, thanks, Julia. It's a really important point. And if you go back and read all the Australian, the US, the UK, French, EU, Japanese defense strategic white papers, you know, especially over the last 10 years, you've seen the words integrated deterrence creeping in, you know, and now the strategic papers are effectively building on that foundation that we've come to realize that we can't do it all ourselves. While people were expecting the US to do it all for them, that's now not happening. You know, you're seeing other countries, you know, stepping up and really going,

well, no, if you help us do more, we will walk alongside you. The AUKUS pact is, I think, the greatest embodiment of that, that we have always been willing and able partners when it's been in our national interest to work aside allies and like-minded countries. But without the capability, we can't be that effective. But without the capability, we can't be that effective. So AUKUS has set up a brilliant way forward where other partners will have the capability to be able to contribute to this integrated deterrence. be as brave if I was any of them as then when you rattle off US, UK, Australia, Japan, Korea, India, France. There is some players in the Indo-Pacific that when you look at them as a true model of integrated deterrence, that's a really powerful reason for our adversaries to really step back and take a look at about, hey, maybe we've got more than we can chew here. Sometimes they think, am I going to be the dog that catches the car?

What do I do when I make that first bite? Can I really eat this thing? And I don't think they can because we are such strong partners. Because we've all worked so closely together and fought alongside each other for over a century now, it's really important that we keep on working together, that these alliances only grow, that sharing of capability, sharing of technology, sharing of intelligence, which we've been doing for a long time now, is super important. And I think one of the key things that we must concentrate on as we move forward in shaping, deterring, responding. Yeah, that all makes sense. And I love this idea that you're getting at, which is that the alliance

is the message, right? The alliance itself, that's the content of the message that we're sending. Absolutely. I think reshaping that old adage of the media is the message into the alliance is the message. It's really important. I think the more that people concentrate on that, take that to heart, build on that, on those foundations, gives us something very real to work with. I could not agree more with David on this point. I think the US said it right in its most recent national defense strategy that allies are one of the most important strategic advantages that the United States has. And that is absolutely right. You never do anything alone. You do not fight your hardest challenges on your own. And I think even over the last five years, we've seen a real shift, I think, among the US,

its allies and partners in Europe and the Indo-Pacific with the way we are looking at China as a potential threat. And I know this is a slightly different conversation for Australia. You know, Australia is in the region. The threats posed by China are not remotely new. But I think we have seen to work on is determining really who will be involved in a worst case scenario of a defense of Taiwan. And I think this is where the US, Australia are extremely aligned in a lot of ways. I would include the UK as part of that too. But there are still a lot of question marks about, of course, what that scenario may or may not look like, and who will bring what capabilities to bear in a potential military scenario where Taiwan is being attacked. And I think that is one of the key

areas where we need to continue to be pursuing dialogue between allies about that, aligning on operational plans for worst case scenarios. We shouldn't over plan for one type of scenario. But I do think that's an area that we need to be making more progress on than we currently are. But I think the more macro issue that David really hits on is defense and technology capability development, right? Our ability to actually work together and ensure that we have interoperability as allies to be able to go forth and take action collectively. And I think AUKUS has been such a tremendous step in that direction. Do we run the risk of losing what China wants to do in the world by too heavily focusing on the Indo-Pacific? So do we risk losing the influence gain if we reorientate

to focus too much on a Taiwan-Chinese crisis flashpoint? Thanks, Adam, and a really good question. I would agree with you. I think if we just focus on China-Taiwan, or if we focus on the Belt and Road Initiative as being a roadmark as of where we need to go, I think we'll go off the path. But whether it's Taiwan as a flashpoint or somewhere else, then I think we still need to focus on this region. A country like Australia, which relies on its seaborne trade, if we're not focusing on defending our sea lines of communication, if we're not partnering with countries to ensure that should we need to either respond to a Taiwan crisis or any other form of flashpoint, you know,

that we can work right across the area. But as we've seen in Europe, you know, just this last week or so, as you see aggression step up, people's appetite for partnering, balancing, if you like, ratchets up. You know, it was amazing to see Finland join NATO and the signal that sends to the rest of the world. Partners do matter. NATO is an incredibly powerful organization. Well, I think David said it really well. And it's a really important question. I think the one thing we know about conflict or crisis is that we can never predict it. And so we don't want to be

overly prescriptive to one type of scenario. At the same time, any good military will plan for some of the worst case scenarios. And certainly a defense of Taiwan would be a really, really difficult situation for us to deal with both politically, but also operationally in and of itself. But I do think we aren't too heavily focused on the Indo-Pacific. I think we have to be able to do both. on the Indo-Pacific. I think we have to be able to do both. We need to be able to maintain focus on the types of activities we see in the grey zone, whether it's BRI or otherwise, happening globally. I think we need a much better sense situationally of what's happening globally. We need a better global situational awareness picture, to be honest, because a lot of what's

happening in Latin America, for instance, where both Russia and China are very, very actively working with different South American, Central American countries to undermine diplomatic ties to Taiwan and seeking the extraction of rare earth elements that can be used for lots of different means. extraction of rare earth elements that can be used for lots of different means. That is an area where from the US perspective, that's the US's backyard. And I think decades of probably deprioritizing that region has led to vacuums in which China and Russia have been able to fill and build pretty strong transactional relationships with certain governments in the region. So I do think it's really important to be able to do both, prepare for the conventional or unconventional worst case scenarios militarily. Also keep an eye

on a lot of the activities that are happening elsewhere across the globe that are really concerning to us. But we started by saying you can't do it all. I mean, that puts a premium on working very, very closely with allies and partners to buy down risk across those multiple areas. I wonder if you have any thoughts about mobilizing your citizenry or supporting your citizenry to really engage in some of these issues in their best interest. But they're largely shielded from it because those of us in defense are trying to do that legwork, right? But we really need this kind of alliance. Wondering if you have any thoughts? Yeah, it's a really good question, Julia. And I've been fairly concentrated on it of late. Your listeners might be aware that Australia is going through a defence strategic review

at the moment being done by the government. And just for context, I'm in opposition at the moment. I'm not part of one of the government parties. We lost the election last May. Now, that may or may not be relevant. But looking outside as someone with a scholarly interest in defence, as well as from a policy point of view, this DSR is troubling to me. Since we're on an irregular warfare podcast, I'll be looking forward to coming back and discussing if I'm invited,

what was missing in the DSR. I can see irregular warfare won't be mentioned. I'll be surprised if even grey zone gets mentioned. I'll be surprised if even grey zone gets mentioned. I'd be surprised if resilience gets mentioned. I think it will purely be a DOD type or ADF, as we call it, type paper, which I think will be missing some real tricks and opportunities. And especially around that point about building resilience and being able to mobilize our people. We saw in Ukraine, you know, in the first, I think it was 24 hours, 24,000 rifles were handed out to citizenry. Australia couldn't do that. Not sure that we'll ever have to, but would we be able to do it if we had to? Would we be able to get everyone

comfortable with the fact that if our sea lanes of communication are cut, our economy is going to look a lot different. Lifestyle is going to look a lot different. Lifestyle is going to look a lot different. I thought here from the US perspective, and it's so interesting to be a part of this conversation and to share views from different countries, because I think we're all facing similar but slightly different issues. So from the US side, you know, you asked the question, how do you mobilize kind of citizen awareness and support for this? It's the anniversary of the all-volunteer force in the US.

And just from a military perspective, we are facing some real retention issues in the US, not just the US, that's happening in a lot of different countries. But it's really got me thinking about what we actually mean by service. And Max Brooks, the author of World War Z, he wrote that book and a lot of other things. He's a fellow on my team, we're lucky to have him with us. He has talked a lot about this, what it actually means to build a civilian service. So not conscription, not the kind of very traditional forms of evolving every member of society and in some form of military service per se, but defining service slightly differently. It could mean military service. It could mean really defining service in ways that society thinks is important for societal cohesion, societal identity issues.

I think a lot of the things that we've talked around around influence are that stuff can embed when there are fractures within society. And I think technology and race relation issues have really brought to light a lot of fractures that just exist, fissures that exist within society. And I think when you are combating adversaries who want to take advantage of that, it's really worth considering, like, what do we actually mean by creating more of a social contract with our citizens? What role do citizens have to play to feed into feeling secure, feeling resilient within your own country? No, I definitely agree, Clementine, that the idea of service in a modern society is very different

to what service to the nation was potentially 50, 60, 70 years ago. And that is fundamental to building the resilience of society. One big one I'd like both your points of views on, what do you think are the biggest restrictions placed on democratic nations to effectively compete in the grey zone? Yeah, that's a great question. So grey zone activity persists in a delta of norms, right? Where in the US and its allies and its adversaries are all playing by distinct sets of rules that are slightly different from one another. So there have been some studies there. So autocracies tending to have an advantage in the gray zone in two ways. One, the nature of their very centralized systems allow the CCP, for example,

to really marshal whole of state resources to execute operations in the grey zone. And then secondly, the openness of democracies, the often diffuse nature of power that exists within democracies can really leave us more vulnerable to grey zone activities and sometimes less effective at cobbling together national responses. So I do think kind of thinking through some of those elements bring to light some of the difficulties that we can often have in responding to grey zone threats. I think the other element is a key part of grey zone activity can often be undermining international norms of behavior. The US, Australia, our allies, our partners, we are bound by, self-bound by rules-based international order

and obligation to work within accepted norms. Often we don't see that in terms of the types of activities. We actually see a deliberate thwarting of those norms by Russia and China. So really identifying where we see those differences, I think it is key. I do want to say, and it's not all doom and gloom, I think the West does have some advantages in defending against grey zone activities. For instance, a free and open press is particularly critical in calling out the types of activities that we see our adversaries do that really flourish best in the dark. And likewise, I think partnerships between allies and partners really allows democracies to bring more weight to a problem collectively

that is otherwise quite difficult to counter on your own. Excellent. Thank you so much, Clementine. And David, as someone who has made a career of their conviction in the capability of a representative system and a representative government, I'm very curious your thoughts on the same. I think some of the things we need to think about is how do we put some more of that sunlight on some of these issues? And I watched with amazement before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, how the US was declassifying information and getting it out there, making it public. That seems to me a tool that we could be using a whole lot more. We have amongst our friends and allies, great intelligence gathering capability. And yes, most of the time that should be kept classified

and out of public view. But I can't help thinking that there is some real utility in being able to get some of that intelligence out there and seeing, naming and shaming what some of our adversaries are doing. Are they having a corrupting influence on democracy, whether it's through bribery or debt trap diplomacy? There has to be more we can do to show these behaviours, to show that this isn't an East versus West. That's just not right. You can't do that. So I think the more that our governments can concentrate their minds on, hey, maybe there's a new way to do this. And as I said, I think the US led the way with declassing information before the Russian invasion. So I think even drip feeding some of those things or starting to test some of those things as a response to grey zone activity,

you could provide some real dividends for strengthening our own resilience, the resilience of countries in our region, and really growing that part of a defence structure that's not DOD, MOD, ADF, but has some real effect in the real world. What is your one primary recommendation to compete better in the grey zone? That's simple. Building awareness of it in the real world. What is your one primary recommendation to compete better in the grey zone? That's simple. Building awareness of it in the first place. I don't think Western governments are as yet alive to the extent that they should be. It's something I write about, I talk about, I speak about in the Senate and certainly in the committees that I serve on. It's something I try

and bring to light. People becoming aware of it and people will go, oh yeah, grey zone. But do we understand what to do about it? Do we understand how to combat it? Certainly in Australia, I can say we're not there yet. David and Clementine, thank you for coming on the Irregular Warfare podcast. Adam and Julia, thank you so much for having us. I couldn't have found a better person to do this conversation with than Clementine. It's been a real honour and a real joy. And I hope we've shared some thoughts about irregular warfare and how it exists in both the real world and the policy world.

Oh, thank you so much, Adam and Julia, for arranging this. And to David, I have learned so much from sitting alongside you in this podcast it's been fantastic. Thank you again for joining us for episode 79 of the Irregular Warfare podcast. We release a new episode every two weeks. In our next episode Ben and Laura discuss the legacy of special operations in Vietnam. You can follow and engage with us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, or LinkedIn. You can also subscribe to our monthly e-newsletter for access to our content and upcoming community events. The newsletter sign-up is found at irregularwarfare.org. If you enjoyed today's episode, please leave a comment and a positive rating on Apple Podcasts

or wherever you listen to the Irregular Warfare podcast. It really helps expose the show to new listeners. And one last note, all that you hear in this episode are the views of the participants and do not represent those at Princeton, West Point, or any agency of the U.S. government. Thanks again, and we'll see you next time.