Hybrid after All: The ‘Grey Zone’, the ‘Hybrid Warfare’ Debate, and the PLA’s Science of Military Strategy

Abstract

Are China’s operations in the context of the many maritime and territorial contestations of the Asia-Pacific aptly described by the ‘grey zone’ paradigm that first emerged in Japanese and American policy and academic environments? Or is the Euro-Atlantic ‘hybrid warfare’ paradigm a more effective tool to understand how China operates below the threshold of war? This study provides a new perspective on the debate between grey zone and hybrid warfare literature by examining how short-of-war military operations are discussed in two quasi-authoritative sources, both titled Science of Military Strategy, published within the People’s Liberation Army ecosystem: the 2013 edition published by the Academy of Military Science and the 2020 edition published by the National Defense University. Ultimately, the two texts suggest that PLA strategists’ understanding of the use of military forces to support Beijing’s expansive sovereignty claims and ‘maritime rights and interests’ 166Defence Strategic Communications | Volume 12 | Spring 2023DOI 10.30966/2018.RIGA.12.8closely resembles Western conceptions of hybrid warfare, rather than grey zone scenarios. Nevertheless, in partial contrast with recent scholarship on Chinese hybrid warfare, the sources examined suggest that Beijing’s short-of-war operations are not conceived to produce a ‘cognitive impasse’ over the objectives, geographical scope, and modus operandi among its counterparts in the Asia-Pacific. Rather, they are conceived as an explicit form of deterrence.