A conflict continuum is a model or concept various social science researchers use when modeling conflict on a continuum from low to high-intensity, such as from aggression to irritation to explosiveness. [1]
The mathematical model of game theory [lower-alpha 1] originally posited only a winner and a loser (a zero-sum game) in a conflict, but was extended to cooperation (a win-win situation and a non-zero sum game), [lower-alpha 2] and lets users specify any point on a scale between cooperation, [2] peace, [Note 1] rivalry, contest, [3] crisis, [4] : 2 and conflict [5] among stakeholders.
By the decade of the 2010s, military planners realized that additional capabilities in communications, sensors and weapons countermeasures made it possible for competitors to react to a contestant's moves in the "gray zone" just short of conflict. [6] In 2018 Kelly McCoy identified a continuum within competition itself, [7] as explored in the United States Joint Staff's Joint Concept for Integrated Campaigning (JCIC), up to the point just short of armed conflict, while noting Perkins' connection to deterrence in the continuum. [8] In 2020, Donald Stoker and Craig Whiteside cautioned that for strategists, the "gray zone" must not blur peace and war; they offered an analysis of the need for strategists to clearly distinguish peace, competition, contest, conflict, and war. [9] [10]
Standoff is the condition of deadlock between antagonists, [11] [lower-alpha 3] sometimes measured by the distance between them (standoff distance). For n antagonists in a non-zero sum game, von Neumann and Morgenstern showed in 1944 [lower-alpha 1] that this condition is equivalent to a zero-sum game with n+1 antagonists, where the n+1st player ("the fictitious player") is not an entity. [13] : 505 Rather the fictitious player represents the global profit (or loss) of the n players in the non-zero sum game. [12] [lower-alpha 2] [lower-alpha 1] If we reduce this game to a zero-sum 3-player game by the introduction of a fictitious player 3, then the characteristic function becomes the one given. [13] : 501 [14] In Tibor Scitovsky's terminology (more commonly known as the Kaldor–Hicks criterion), this global profit (or loss) of the n+1st player represents the amount that the gainers would have been prepared to pay to the losers (or, in a global loss, the global amount that the n players have lost in total), in order to attain a desired global policy. [15]
Overmatch is the condition where protagonist A is able to present multiple dilemmas [16] to an antagonist E. Thus if E can recognize that E risks total destruction (annihilation), [16] then it is possible to bring an end to conflict between A and E. If A can bring about overmatch for all E's, the hegemony of A would result, temporarily. In other confrontations between A and the Es, deterrence can be the mutual recognition that power need not be used to destroy one another (mutually assured destruction). Instead A might display or project its power to the Es as a substitute for battle with them. [17] If A's power can remain leashed (potential rather than kinetic) [lower-alpha 4] then soft power and hard power are also optional possibilities on a continuum of possible conflict between A and the Es. [19]
Elise M. Boulding was a Quaker sociologist influenced by the events of World War II. Examining how war becomes peace, she posited a continuum between wars of extermination [20] and transformation. [21]
This is Boulding's conflict continuum: [20]
War of extermination |
Limited war |
Threat systems (deterrence) |
Arbitration |
Mediation |
Negotiation (exchange) |
Mutual adaptation |
Alliance |
Co-operation |
Integration [20] |
Transformation [21] |
Theorist Andra Medea seeks to explain how individuals, small groups, organizations, families, ethnicities, and even whole nations function when disputes arise between them. She posits that there are four types or levels of conflict, each operating under distinct rules: [22]
(1) Problem Solving | (2) Domination | (3) Blind Behavior | (4) Rogue Messiah |
Each level moving from first to fourth is characterized by increasing degrees of separation from reality, and decreasing degrees of maturity, in this context, defined as the ability to control anger and settle differences without violence or destruction. Problem-solving behavior is based in reality and maturity, and is therefore more rational and mature than domination. Domination is more rational and mature than blind behavior, which is more rational and mature than the Rogue Messiah. [23]
However, each level moving from fourth to first is more capable than the one below it at forcing victory in a conflict. The rogue messiah overpowers blind behavior, blind behavior thwarts domination, and domination deadlocks problem-solving. [23]
Before 2017, winning a conflict was seen as the objective of the US Army. [24] By 2018, the US Air Force showed it was important to reformulate this strategy, as part of a larger process of multi-domain operations (MDO), [lower-alpha 5] which involve more than an army in a theater of war (World War II and Cold War model). Specifically, MDO can offer options short of war which can defuse armed conflict from total war into deterrence, compromise, or cooperation between competitors. [26] [27] [28] [29] [30] [31] [32]
Multi-domain operations [lower-alpha 5] occur as overlapped, integrated operation of cyberspace, [lower-alpha 6] space (including satellite operations), land, maritime, and air. [36] [lower-alpha 5] A multi-domain task force was stood up in 2018 in I Corps for the Pacific. [16] [37] [38] Multi-domain battalions, first stood up in 2019, comprise a single unit for air, land, space, and cyber domains. [39]
The MDO model recognizes that near-peer competitors might not actually seek conflict with each other, but perhaps merely near-term advantage in order to buy time for themselves [40] [41] in the face of overmatch. For example, the X-37B space plane can change its orbit; this capability has military applications. [42] On 15 July 2020, Cosmos 2543 emitted a kinetic vehicle, which emitted a tertiary object. This maneuver is interpreted as a test of anti-satellite capability. [43] [44] Cosmos 2542 has been tailing USA-245, a KH-11. [45] Other multi-domain operations short of war, [46] but still escalating the conflict, might include the shooting-down of military drones as in June 2019. [47] [48] By May 2023 a robotic Chinese space plane (similar to the X-37B) in orbit from October 2022 to May 2023 had successfully released, and then recaptured an orbiting object. [49] In August 2023 USSF Space Systems Command and the NRO revealed countermeasures to China's maneuverable space vehicles that are in geosynchronous orbit. [50]
Other operations short of war in 2018 include undeclared conflicts, involving proxy military units funded by oligarchs, [51] [lower-alpha 7] but specifically disclaimed by near-peer competitors. [52] [lower-alpha 7] This is in direct response to the strategy which the US has promulgated since 1949. [53] [lower-alpha 7]
Destruction of infrastructure such as fuel pipelines, [55] [56] [57] [58] [59] the energy grid, [60] [61] or the GPS network, or the financial markets, or confidence in national law and order may be goals for partners, competitors, or adversaries, [62] [63] depending on where they might be in the continuum of conflict. [64] [65] [66] Directed energy attacks on US embassies, and even the White House are cropping up, as reported April 2021. [67] [68]
Conflicts of belief, and conflicts of their underlying narratives can lead to social disorder, sometimes resulting in depression or suicide. [69] Thus disinformation could be a tactic in the spectrum of conflict. [70] [71] [72] [64] [73]
In 2021 the 40th Chief of Staff of the United States Army identified three dimensions of military competition: 1) narrative, 2) direct (zero-sum), and 3) indirect (non-zero sum) competition. [74] Narrative competition shapes and frames a baseline within which direct, or indirect competition with adversaries are related. In progressive stages of the narrative, allies, partners, neutral parties, observers, and rivals are encouraged to cooperate with the protagonist. Alternatively, adversaries are deterred from military conflict against the protagonist. [74]
If an adversary persists in direct competition, the protagonist simply continues to advance with direct competition, thereby gaining leverage over the adversary. The protagonist might find it possible only to impede the adversary; in this case, allies and partners may interoperate against the adversary for mutual advantage with the protagonist. [74]
If rivals or adversaries persist in indirect competition, the protagonists seek advantage over them by building relationships with cooperating allies, partners, neutral parties, or observers; in addition the protagonists keep a forward presence in the theater; the protagonists also must keep their capabilities relevant, competitive, and current. Cost becomes a factor, as adversaries learn by simply trying to keep up. [74] Eventually indirect competition could stabilize; [Note 1] however, the 40th Chief of Staff notes competition is an infinite game. [74]
The United States Armed Forces are the military forces of the United States. The armed forces consists of six service branches: the Army, Marine Corps, Navy, Air Force, Space Force, and Coast Guard. All six armed services are among the eight uniformed services of the United States.
Deterrence theory refers to the scholarship and practice of how threats or limited force by one party can convince another party to refrain from initiating some other course of action. The topic gained increased prominence as a military strategy during the Cold War with regard to the use of nuclear weapons and is related to but distinct from the concept of mutual assured destruction, according to which a full-scale nuclear attack on a power with second-strike capability would devastate both parties. The central problem of deterrence revolves around how to credibly threaten military action or nuclear punishment on the adversary despite its costs to the deterrer.
The United States Space Command is a unified combatant command of the United States Department of Defense, responsible for military operations in outer space, specifically all operations 100 kilometers and greater above mean sea level. U.S. Space Command is responsible for the operational employment of space forces that are provided by the uniformed services of the Department of Defense.
Power projection in international relations is the capacity of a state to deploy and sustain forces outside its territory. The ability of a state to project its power into an area may serve as an effective diplomatic lever, influencing the decision-making processes and acting as a potential deterrent on other states' behavior.
The Boeing X-37, also known as the Orbital Test Vehicle (OTV), is a reusable robotic spacecraft. It is boosted into space by a launch vehicle, then re-enters Earth's atmosphere and lands as a spaceplane. The X-37 is operated by the Department of the Air Force Rapid Capabilities Office, in collaboration with United States Space Force, for orbital spaceflight missions intended to demonstrate reusable space technologies. It is a 120-percent-scaled derivative of the earlier Boeing X-40. The X-37 began as a NASA project in 1999, before being transferred to the United States Department of Defense in 2004. Until 2019, the program was managed by Air Force Space Command.
A military exercise, training exercise, or war game is the employment of military resources in training for military operations. Military exercises are conducted to explore the effects of warfare or test tactics and strategies without actual combat. They also ensure the combat readiness of garrisoned or deployable forces prior to deployment from a home base.
The Field Artillery Branch is a combat arms branch of the United States Army that is responsible for field artillery.
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The Wideband Global SATCOM system (WGS) is a high capacity United States Space Force satellite communications system planned for use in partnership by the United States Department of Defense (DoD), Canadian Department of National Defence (DND) and the Australian Department of Defence. The system is composed of the Space Segment satellites, the Terminal Segment users and the Control Segment operators.
United States Cyber Command (USCYBERCOM) is one of the eleven unified combatant commands of the United States Department of Defense (DoD). It unifies the direction of cyberspace operations, strengthens DoD cyberspace capabilities, and integrates and bolsters DoD's cyber expertise which focus on securing cyberspace.
Hybrid warfare is a theory of military strategy, first proposed by Frank Hoffman, which employs political warfare and blends conventional warfare, irregular warfare, and cyberwarfare with other influencing methods, such as fake news, diplomacy, lawfare and foreign electoral intervention. By combining kinetic operations with subversive efforts, the aggressor intends to avoid attribution or retribution. The concept of hybrid warfare has been criticized by a number of academics and practitioners due to its alleged vagueness, its disputed constitutive elements, and its alleged historical distortions.
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The United States Army Futures Command (AFC) is a United States Army command that runs modernization projects. It is headquartered in Austin, Texas.
Overmatch is a concept in modern military thinking which prizes having overwhelming advantages over an adversary to a more significant margin than in traditional warfare. It is related to military superiority. Overmatch uses a military force's "capabilities or unique tactics" to compel the opposing forces to stop using their own equipment or tactics, as doing so would lead to their own defeat or destruction. By fielding the right mix of capabilities, the commander can present multiple dilemmas to the enemy, thus compelling the enemy to withdraw.
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Multi-Domain Operations is the United States Army's central concept of operations. It was created to reflect the 2018 National Defense Strategy, which shifted the previous focus of U.S. national security from countering violent extremists worldwide to confronting revisionist powers—primarily Russia and China.
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