The Case for Joint Military–Industry Greyzone Exercises
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ELISABETH BRAW i Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies BRIEFING PAPER The Case for Joint Military–Industry Greyzone Exercises Elisabeth Braw BRIEFING PAPER 1 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Greyzone aggression is effective because it exploits gaps in countries’ defence. Virtually no liberal democracies are set up to defend themselves against a combination of non-kinetic attacks on civil society. It is, however, clear that the armed forces alone cannot defend their countries against this type of aggression. With businesses now finding themselves targets of geopolitically motivated aggression, such as cyber attacks, they can play a significant role in better defending themselves and, as a result, their countries of operation. Today, corporate crisis management exercises have a purely tactical scope, focusing on company-specific threats. This paper proposes joint military–industry exercises to practise defence against greyzone aggression. Such exercises would, to some extent, mirror traditional military exercises. They would, however, be purely defensive in nature and include specific companies, which would volunteer to participate or be invited to do so. The exercises would be conducted under the authority of the interior ministry and would help the armed forces and participating companies to respond to a greyzone attack in a coordinated fashion. As with traditional military exercises, industry participation should involve participants at all levels up to the chief executive. A good model on which to build these are Sweden’s ‘total defence’ exercises, which were conducted until 1987 and resumed in 2019. Businesses that participate in such joint greyzone exercises should be given International Organization for Standardization-style, industry-recognised certifications, which would signal their foresight and preparation to clients and consumers. Costs for the exercises should be borne by the armed forces, with participating businesses carrying their own costs. Key to the success of military–industry greyzone defence exercises would be the support and participation of top political decision-makers. INTRODUCTION The coronavirus pandemic has demonstrated a fundamental lack of preparedness for non-kinetic national contingencies around the world. In most advanced economies, the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic caused confusion and panic, ranging from panic-buying by consumers to uncertainty among businesses about whether and how to maintain operations during the outbreak. In the UK, for example, many businesses in the hospitality sector – even those with takeaway and delivery services – were unable to remain open during the lockdown due to the lack of safety measures for operating during a pandemic. This pandemic is not the last non-kinetic contingency likely to hit liberal democracies. On the contrary, greyzone aggression – aggression below ELISABETH BRAW 2 the threshold of kinetic violence – against liberal democracies is on the rise.1 While cyber attacks are the best known form of greyzone aggression, disinformation campaigns, as well as subversive actions that could, for example, see vital supply chains disrupted, also pose a significant threat. Indeed, the forms of greyzone aggression a hostile state can engage in is limited only by the imagination of that country’s officials. As demonstrated by Russia’s different ways of interfering with Western public discourse and elections,2 and China’s coercive diplomacy, officials in these countries have proven to be highly imaginative.3 In addition, extreme weather events and other contingencies caused by nature are similarly increasing, not least as a result of climate change.4 Such contingencies can cause damage as serious as that caused by a kinetic attack, especially in highly developed countries that depend on an intricate web of services functioning smoothly: power, internet, distribution of goods, ports, transportation and retail. A one-day disruption of, say, distribution centre software would cause an immediate crisis in the availability of food in an advanced economy. This paper calls this phenomenon the ‘convenience trap’. Developing countries are typically more accustomed to regular 1. NATO Strategic Communications Centre of Excellence’s list of areas of greyzone threats includes: territorial violation; non-governmental organisations; government-organised non-governmental organisations; espionage and infiltration; lawfare; agitation and civil unrest; exploitation of ethnic and cultural identities; media; cyber operations; coercion through threat or use of force. See NATO Strategic Communications Centre of Excellence, Hybrid Threats: A Strategic Communications Perspective (Riga: NATO Strategic Communications Centre of Excellence), p. 38. 2. Russian interference includes misinformation through media outlets such as Sputnik, spread of misinformation and disinformation on social media and attacks on election infrastructure. For a comprehensive review of Russian interference in the 2016 US elections, see US Senate Committee on Intelligence, ‘Report of the Select Committee on Intelligence United States Senate on Russian Active Measures Campaigns and Interference in the 2016 US Election Volume 1: Russian Efforts Against Election Infrastructure With Additional Views’, report 116-XX, 116th Congress, <https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/ files/documents/Report_Volume1.pdf>, accessed 8 September 2020. 3. For example, China’s detention of two Canadian researchers in retaliation for Canada’s 2018 arrest of Huawei’s chief financial officer, Meng Wanzhou, on fraud charges in the US. At the time of writing, the two Canadians are still in Chinese detention. See South China Morning Post, ‘Canada Warns China That “Coercive Diplomacy” Won’t Secure Release of Huawei’s Meng Wanzhou’, 28 August 2020. 4. Carbon Brief, ‘Mapped: How Climate Change Affects Extreme Weather Around the World’, 15 April 2020, <https://www.carbonbrief.org/mapped-how-climate- change-affects-extreme-weather-around-the-world>, accessed 8 September 2020. BRIEFING PAPER 3 disruption. The average Nigerian company, for example, is expected to cope with an average 33 power cuts per month.5 The damage that greyzone aggression can cause makes defence against it imperative. While advanced economies have well-equipped armed forces that regularly exercise defence against kinetic aggression, they do not have whole-of-society exercises for greyzone scenarios or crises caused by nature (which can be exploited by hostile states). Only Sweden’s ‘total defence’ exercises come close. After a three-decade pause after the end of the Cold War, these exercises resumed in 2019.6 This paper seeks to understand how countries can better defend themselves against greyzone aggression. Greyzone actions occur below the threshold of war and this ambiguity can make it difficult for the targeted country to discern and then combat that aggression. This paper proposes that one way for targeted countries to address this serious vulnerability is to introduce joint military–industry greyzone defence exercises. It explains the utility of such exercises and proposes models for how they can be conducted. The intention is for this paper to serve as a resource for policymakers and business leaders in charge of shoring up defence against greyzone aggression in its different forms. METHODOLOGY AND DEFINITIONS This paper is based on interviews with industry and military leaders in Europe and the US, and a targeted review of existing literature. The paper also builds on debates and events organised by RUSI as part of its Modern Deterrence project,7 which focuses on how liberal democracies can better defend themselves against new and emerging threats through a whole-of-society approach. The paper focuses on ‘high-income countries’, the definition used by the World Bank for countries with a GDP per capita of $12,536 or more.8 Most of these countries (including European countries, North America, Australia and New Zealand) are considered liberal democracies. The paper’s area of focus, greyzone aggression, is defined here as ‘competitive interactions among and within state and non-state actors that fall between 5. The World Bank, ‘Power Outages in Firms in a Typical Month (Number)’, <https:// data.worldbank.org/indicator/IC.ELC.OUTG>, accessed 8 September 2020. 6. Försvarsmakten [Armed Forces of Sweden], ‘Totalförsvarsövning 2020’ [‘Total Defence Exercise 2020’], <https://www.forsvarsmakten.se>, accessed 8 september 2020. 7. RUSI, ‘Modern Deterrence’, <https://rusi.org/projects/modern-deterrence>, accessed 15 September 2020. 8. The World Bank, ‘World Bank Country and Lending Groups’, <https://datahelpdesk.worldbank.org/knowledgebase/articles/906519#High_income>, accessed 8 September 2020. ELISABETH BRAW 4 the traditional war and peace duality’.9 Greyzone aggression is related, but not identical, to hybrid warfare, although in the public debate the two are often conflated. In Frank G Hoffman’s definition – commonly used by scholars and military planners – ‘hybrid threats incorporate a full range of different modes of warfare including conventional capabilities, irregular tactics and formations, terrorist acts including indiscriminate violence and coercion, and criminal disorder’.10 Given that all wars include at least some irregular elements, all wars could also be described as hybrid. NON-KINETIC AGGRESSION AND GREYZONE EXERCISES: CONTEXT AND BACKGROUND Greyzone aggression is on the rise. This form of attack exploits the gap between crime and