Thought Leader Summary. Heather Conley SVP for Europe, Eurasia, and the Arctic; and Director, Europe Program, CSIS

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1 Prospects and Priorities for U.S. Gray Zone Competition Center for Strategic and International Studies Tuesday, November 27, 2018 Heather Conley SVP for Europe, Eurasia, and the Arctic; and Director, Europe Program, CSIS David Cohen former Deputy Director, CIA; and former Undersecretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence at Treasury Ambassador Derek Mitchell President, National Democratic Institute; former U.S. Ambassador to Myanmar; & former PDASD, Asian and Pacific Security Affairs Thomas Wright Director, Center on the U.S. and Europe; and Senior Fellow - Foreign Policy, Project on International Order and Strategy, Brookings Suzanne Spaulding Senior Adviser, Homeland Security Program and International Security Program; and Director, Defending Democratic Institutions

2 Conley The gray zone is said to be that space between war and peace. I believe that we are at war. Is this war? Cohen - Yes - war is when one nation exerts its will on another nation - Russia s techniques seek to undermine American interests and advance their interests which perhaps are ultimately as effective as traditional war gray zone activities, through cyber, can escalate to war (above the threshold) Mitchell Yes, a type of war - after the Cold War, countries looked at the U.S. as very powerful so a symmetric challenge wouldn t work so they went asymmetrical with China, we knew they were uncomfortable with alliances, they think in terms of comprehensive national power, they talked of why to achieve objectives short of war Chinese strategy is to achieve objectives without leading to an actual kinetic war so the idea is finding key nodes or weaknesses in the U.S. classical Chinese strategy war suggests complete defeat so we are short of war Spaulding - Reluctant to say yes due to legal training - war carries a lot of legal ramifications and arguments, so prefer to say, we are under attack - if war, then only one side knows this and there is insufficient understanding of our side there is not a sufficient understanding of the threat to our national interests and national security Wright Not war - both sides or social orders are trying to make the world safer - one for neoauthoritarian and one for free societies/democracies our system is inherently threatening to neoauthoritarian regimes both are incompatible and the neo-authoritarians are insecure

3 Wright - Individually, it is hard to appreciate how actions affect the individual the arguments seem hard to internalize - the gray zone is about a societal clash so illuminate illicit corruption, and similar - shaping discussions within the U.S. on technology is a good place to start and figure out together, where to go - perhaps the focus on the future and not the past and talk less about the alliances and their roots in 1940s Conley There is an ideology present (democracy and open society) within the gray zone. Awareness is key to mobilize yourself and people. How to listen to your government? Gray zone actions are designed to be below the threshold so you really don t know or act. Spaulding - Need senior U.S. leadership to talk of how our adversaries are using information operations to weaken us - adversary actions reproduce own weaknesses indefinitely in a very one-sided way RT has a weekly program called, America s Lawyers, whose unrelenting theme is that America s justice system is corrupt and broken; it has been taken over by politicians and the elite for their own corrupt ends must convey that you may agree with this propaganda but the propaganda isn t there to support your cause and if you looked into these propaganda efforts, you would find Russia weighing in on both sides they want to weaken us Mitchell On the U.S. military s use, too many resources are allocated to hard power and not enough in other elements of national power I hope that we don t need to mobilize society like during the Cold War but then, we were shaping every day we need to shine the light on the challenge to address it and not overreact to it Cohen Many sanction programs are geared against gray zone proxies (name and shame) to disable them - with finance, a public messaging component counters illicit finance with CIA, a covert messaging component is available but do we want to use that? (the idea of working in information and also consider appropriateness of using disinformation)

4 Conley Since 9/11, we restructured for counter-terrorism - since 2016, we have not restructured. When? Who? How? Spaulding - Much of this falls into the seams (domestic and foreign) - typical government responses (IPCs) haven t been established - any work by government is being done in silos now - nobody has the mission to lead this whole-of-nation or whole-of-society approach that is required - every department has and should have key roles so the White House needs to lead Cohen Congress has passed legislation (DETER Act or Defending Elections from Threats by Establishing Redlines Act of 2018 ) - the current sanctions program is unusual with the President s decision - after an election, the ODNI produces a report which goes to the Attorney General and Secretary of the Treasury with recommendations and then to the President to do what he wants with recommended sanctions - designed for the President to ignore if desirable Mitchell What are the rules, standards and norms? Need to organize at the White House level

5 Conley Economic coercion - If you can t beat it, then buy it - illicit financing and economic coercion are a strength of neo-authoritarians and a weakness for us (our transparency, openness, rules and how they are used to harm ourselves) Cohen Our adversaries use money, in covert and not-so-covert ways, to buy media companies, government officials, business opportunities (through corrupt practices) - the U.S. combats this through exporting financial transparency globally or promoting good financial practices globally - extraordinary strides forward over the past twenty years - the FCPA (Foreign Corrupt Practices Act) which minimizes bribery - the Global Magnitsky Act (Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act, 2016) minimizes corruption Mitchell China s fundamental belief, anyone can be bought, if people make money, they will remain quiet - China is seeing that this may not be true - perhaps borrowed, not bought - it is about the rules and norms and Chinese contracts - our desire is to empower people to take charge of their own countries and make their own decisions (we win this globally) - to think about the how and not the what so much Spaulding - Transparency plays to our strengths and their weaknesses - train to fight in the light (take advantage of our incredible head-start and turn on the lights around the world - neo-authoritarian regimes count on keeping secrets from their people and our strength is that our government does not Wright Post WWII, the underlying assumption was that the stakeholders would be cooperative (more in common than in difference) through interdependence - China still has interdependence and (like everyone) is looking to use that interdependence to exploit others weaknesses - the smaller the country, the more vulnerable to big country money (China) - will countries cooperate to uphold the international system in the future?

6 Conley #FightInTheLight should be our new gray zone hashtag - its doing what we have always done but perhaps we have forgotten - our weapons are our truth, our transparency, the dignity of the individual, empowering that individual and civil society - we know the values, we know the norms, we know what to do and we just tried to take a lot of short cuts Conley When the rules or norms are broken, we go to sanctions - parallel structures exist now and create resistance - what other tools are available short of warfare? Cohen The demise of the sanctions tool is overstated - sanctions remain part of an overall policy - they work because countries are dependent upon the U.S. financial system and that won t change anytime soon - China uses their size and wealth with economic coercion and will continue to do so as they grow Mitchell Competition of norms and values - while Ambassador in Burma, the only way to compete is to change the battlefield in a way to make it a more open system where they more agency, people have more ability to speak for themselves and it is a more open system and therefore, they will ask for social and environmental standards that works for the U.S. - that is our battlefield our strength and not China s - I realized we were prevailing in a way if you want to think about it over China in Burma was when the Chinese Ambassador said publicly, we need to do CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) - the Chinese thought that CSR was passing around money - we need to force China to come into the light and really compete Wright Support for sanctions against Russia in Europe was thought to have collapsed by now but the sanctions remain and appear stable - a larger strategic question governing all of this is how interdependent do we want to be over the medium to long term with Russia, China, and others and is it actually a good thing to encourage the levels of commercial engagement - certain interdependent areas should be consider and perhaps pulled back a bit