Paradigmatic variations
Classical Geopolitics has a maxim by Halford Mackinder that states ‘He who rules the Heartland, rules the world’[1]. This principle has underpinned a century and more of geopolitical planning and action around the world, particularly by the thalassocratic powers, the Sea Civilisation, against the tellurocratic powers, the Land Civilisation, in a dual conflict whose understanding is fundamental to understanding what is happening in the world.
In the context of postmodern wars and their strategic and tactical construction, the advent of the grey zone has not a little changed the symmetries and opened up new scenarios, almost always considered only from an empirical perspective. Perhaps the time has come to ask questions: is the grey zone a domain of war? Is it a geographical space? If so, what does controlling the grey zone mean? Such questions must be attempted to be answered.
Geographies of conceptual spaces
The grey zone stands as a ‘zone’ with blurred boundaries between the public and private worlds, a semi-occult dimension in which the covert level of permanent warfare, i.e. that operated by intelligence, continues.
As recently elaborated:
“The concept of the grey zone (grey zone in English) has a very interesting genesis, as it is not separable from the concept of hybrid war (hybrid war). Let us see in what sense: every war has its own domain, or several domains, a typology depending on how extensive it is geographically and in the commitment of forces and armaments, its own strategy and a series of tactics to achieve it, a primary objective to be achieved that acts as a compass for all secondary ones; Since a hybrid war implies a continuous contamination of several types of warfare, and thus of domains, forces, resources and so on, it became necessary to conceptualise a ‘neutral space’, or a ‘border but borderless space’ within which the transition between different wars could take place. This is how the grey zone was born, whose semantics already tells how it is neither of one colour nor another, but of a pale indefinite and adaptable mixture with any other colour of war.”[2]
An indefinite space, then, not empirically measurable with traditional tools, which is a conceptual space, that is, one that can be imagined and rationalised, but eludes the common capacity for measurement. In the space of the imagination, be it small group or collective, the construction of geopolitical egregiousness is a delicate process and may require meticulous precision. Without disturbing the more subtle levels of geopolitics, however, staying on the level of reasoning it is possible to assume the grey zone as a space that both is and is not there, where interactions between present subjects take place and, therefore, a potential domain of war. To have dominion, however, one needs to be able to ‘dominate’, and views on the control of conceptual spaces is a sensitive issue and falls within the horizon of philosophy and cognitive science.
It is no coincidence that in a world that claims to be moving towards the creation and habitation of a virtual copy, such as the metaverse, the war scenarios are also moving in the same direction, and indeed we have set it up in advance[3]. The gradual colonisation, first semantic and then informational, of digital spaces is a clear sign of the transposition of governance structures into the world of data. The whole system of networks is managed with platforms and devices that are subject to well-defined laws, terms and conditions, agreements and boundaries, to which the majority of people pay no attention because the digital is not yet considered a world unto itself, but rather a tool or a place/non-place to enter and exit at will, despite the rapid approach and connection of all the actions of ‘real’ everyday life with the digital world.
The grey zone, however, is not to be confused with cyberwar and infowar. It has a calculable dimension in the geographical reality of the planet, but remaining at a sort of dimensional suspension, a conceptual space-time that intersects with that defined as real, and by virtue of this transversality is extremely important for global strategy. The grey zone is, in this sense, an intra-dimensional dimension that magmatically touches all domains and at the same time eludes them; it is real and virtual, it is sometimes solidly measurable and at other times gaseous and elusive. We are faced with a domain of war and conceptual geography space that is mostly unknown and is continuously generated by the mixing of the five domains of war (land, water, air, space, infosphere).
The Chinese proposal: the Global Security Initiative document
The government of the People’s Republic of China published a document on 24 February 2023, the first anniversary of Russia’s Special Military Operation in the Donbass, which opens up new scenarios precisely with regard to the grey zone.
The entire text is built around core concepts, six points that deal precisely with the grey zone and hint at how China has extensively studied its dimensions and the enormous potential when becoming its leader. It is no coincidence that the title chosen for the document is indicative of the willingness to set itself above other domains and to free itself, in a roundabout way, from traditional forms of international relations with other countries. The peace proposal for the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, which is well known to be a conflict of civilisations between West and East, between NATO and Eurasia, is a proposal for the acceptance of new relational and diplomatic conditions, completely asymmetrical and, above all, in a land still unexplored for many. A grey territory in which China has probably already set foot some time ago.
Among the many interesting parts, some excerpts are useful to better focus on the underlying intentions:
“The essence of this new vision of security is to support a common security concept, respecting and safeguarding the security of each country; a holistic approach, maintaining security in both traditional and non-traditional camps and improving security governance in a coordinated manner.”[4] This is the essence of the new vision of security.
There is also support for the multipolar vision of the world, proposing both the self-determination of states and non-interference in internal affairs, with freedom of choice and independence in social systems and development paths, also through the protection of the United Nations as a supranational entity of meeting and resolution. This passage calls for the promotion of global governance in a multilateral rather than multipolar sense, perfectly in line with the political doctrines of the Republic of China.
It is interesting to note the broad scope of the document, which also involves African and South American countries, as well as the Middle East, proposing the ‘Chinese way’ as a methodology to be applied also in those contexts that have long been the prerogative of Western countries. The grey area, on the other hand, has also blurred towards those borders, and allows them to be reached without strategic difficulty.
Revealing the care for leadership in the grey zone is, however, point No.14, followed by No.15 and No.17, in which China emphasises the necessary cooperation on biosecurity (14 and 17) and artificial intelligence (15), two essential points of the UN’s Agenda2030 and also the two most popular fields of unconventional warfare in the last thirty years. In the same vein, point No. 5 of Section IV in the conclusion reads:
“China is willing to provide other developing countries with 5,000 training opportunities over the next five years to train professionals to address global security issues.”[5]
Suggesting that a broad strategic plan involving the plurality of sectors in the Chinese world and beyond has already been laid out. A document that is probably the outcome of long months of study and planning and that, coming out on the anniversary of the Russian-Ukrainian operation, has caused a sudden realignment for all the countries orbiting around the interests of the conflict.
Passage of domains or passage of doctrines?
Mackinder’s axiom is subjected to a series of doubts. Is the idea that by controlling the Heartland one can control the world still valid? A doubt arises when, reasoning by hypothesis, one assumes the asymmetry of wars as the majority style and, therefore, action in the grey zone as necessary for every warring actor. It should also not be forgotten that the presence of the grey zone is a constitutive element of hybrid wars, which always have as their point a dimensional asymmetry, where the topography of space and time ensures that one never really leaves the atmosphere of conflict, that one is never completely excluded from being a participant – active or passive – in a declared or undercurrent war.
If the Heartland is a delimited and measurable geographical and ethnosociological space while the grey zone is not, then it is likely that the grey zone can either overtake the Heartland, encompassing it, or become the preferred channel to its domination. Mackinder’s classical axiom would then either be obliterated altogether, or placed once again at the centre of geopolitical science. In the former case, one could say He who controls the grey area, controls the world, and right now China has proclaimed not even too veiledly that it is colonising the new strategic conceptual domain; in the latter case, on the other hand, one would have to understand how much the Heartland is of interest to China or how much the Chinese move could favour other partners in the Heartland’s borders, as one continues to see among the close cooperation the US has with China despite its maritime and aerospace rifts.
The propulsive thrust of the Chinese document cannot leave one indifferent to considering the ways in which the axioms of classical geopolitics are undergoing gradual shifts. Similarly, it is relevant how the Mackinderian principle can also be applied to the grey zone. The Island-World, another fundamental concept for geopolitical science, could be varied and become precisely the grey zone, where it can be conceptually visualised as an island to which everyone lands but which no one controls, and the lord of the island becomes the one who decides the fate of all other peoples. Clearly, it is necessary to better understand what the grey zone is, wondering why one of the most powerful countries in the world has suddenly turned in the direction of that grey island. Doctrinal development in the geopolitics of the grey zone is still almost in its infancy and the hope is that deepening may come in time to escape new conflicts fatal to humanity or variable hegemonies in subtle dimensions.
[1] H. J. Mackinder, Democratic Ideals and Reality. A study in the Politics and Recontruction, National Defense University Press, 1996, p. 150.
[2] L. M. Pacini, Un futuro che è già presente: la zona grigia nelle guerre contemporanee, in Domus Europa, 19 January 2023, digital resource https://domus-europa.eu/2023/01/19/un-futuro-che-e-gia-presente-la-zona-grigia-nelle-guerre-contemporanee-di-lorenzo-maria-pacin…
[3] It should not be forgotten that the Internet started as an American military platform in 1969.
[4] Global Security Initiative Concept Paper, II, n.1.
[5] Ibid, IV, n.5.
Lorenzo Maria Pacini
Source: Chi Governa la Zona Grigia, Governa il Mondo – Domus Europa