CYBER ACTIVITIES IN THE GREY ZONE: AN OVERVIEW OF THE RUSSIAN AND CHINESE APPROACHES
CYBER ACTIVITIES IN THE GREY ZONE: AN OVERVIEW OF THE RUSSIAN AND CHINESE APPROACHES

Author(s): COLOM-PIELLA Guillem
Subject(s): Politics / Political Sciences, Politics, Economy, Security and defense, Military policy, ICT Information and Communications Technologies
Published by: Carol I National Defence University Publishing House
Keywords: hybrid threat; grey zone; cyber warfare; information warfare; China; Russia;
Summary/Abstract: Concepts such as “hybrid threat” or “grey zone” are used to define the wide range of “political warfare” actions that countries such as Russia, China, Iran or North Korea employ for projecting their influence, plausibly denying their responsibility and hampering any response by not crossing the threshold of an armed conflict. Those characteristics allow many actors to project their power asymmetrically by hindering the attribution of their actions, preventing the allocation of legal responsibilities, making retaliation more difficult and compromising the credibility of deterrence. Although many of these actions are carried out in the physical world, the virtual domain seems the natural realm for these activities. This is due to the ambiguity, anonymity, asymmetry, economy and ubiquity of cyberspace. This contribution focuses on the “grey zone” activities in the cyber and information domains conducted by two relevant powers – China and Russia – and discuss the problems and prospects related to those.

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