Building a wall of denial against gray-zone aggression

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Key Points

With forms of aggression below the threshold of war (“gray-zone aggression”) increasing, liberal democracies’ defense and deterrence need to include more than armed forces.

This means creating deterrence by denial by building societal resilience, in which the private sector and the wider civil society help in limiting the harm of any aggression against the country.

Doing so is in the interest of both businesses and ordinary citizens, as they are harmed by gray-zone aggression.

This report offers proposals from voluntary citizen resilience training to government-industry national security consultations that would bolster countries’ societal resilience.

Executive Summary

NATO member states and partners today face national security threats that extend far beyond military aggression. Indeed, they are regularly targeted by nonmilitary means, so-called gray-zone aggression. Because gray-zone aggression can include any mea­sures below the level of war, including illegal ones, it is impossible for the targeted countries to deter every act with the threat of punishment.

This means liberal democracies should give more attention to societal resilience. By involving all parts of society in keeping the country safe in case of a crisis, they can signal to adversaries that aggression will not have the desired effect. Today civil society is, in most countries, a largely untapped resource in national security. Countries from Finland to Singa­pore feature considerable societal participation in national security, but deterrence of gray-zone aggres­sion also offers considerable potential for innovation.

This report, adapted from my upcoming book The Defender’s Dilemma: Deterring Gray-Zone Aggression, outlines a whole-of-society model for deterrence by denial and proposes measures governments could take or coordinate to incentivize businesses and the wider population to help keep their countries safe. The proposals include community stress testing, vol­untary resilience training for teenagers and other demographic groups, and government-industry con­sultations on national security issues.

Introduction

“In case of war, please ring [the bell] twice.”1 In 1939, Rudolf Minger was prepared. The Swiss defense minister’s advantage was, of course, that he had a good idea of what sort of attack to expect, and so did his country’s population. Defending a country against gray-zone aggression poses a much harder challenge because the targeted country cannot be sure what forms of aggression will be used and indeed who should mount the defense and deterrence.

Deterrence of gray-zone aggression is possible, though it requires a radical shift in liberal democra­cies’ approach to national security, toward a system that involves not just the government but also the pri­vate sector and wider society. Collectively, the govern­ment and civil society can create a wall of resilience that denies opportunities to aggressors. Together, lib­eral democracies’ governments can also develop deter­rence by punishment by playing to their strengths: that they have allies, that their citizens and private sectors can choose to play a part in national security if offered the opportunity, and that their countries have assets foreign governments and leaders desire.

In addition to deterrence, scholars of the field often discuss dissuasion, which denotes deterrence before any action occurs. For the sake of simplicity, this report divides deterrence into two parts: deter­rence by denial and deterrence by punishment. This report outlines a whole-of-society model for deter­rence by denial.