On Power, War, Space, and the Grey Zone: Excerpts from a Senior Year Course on Conflict

Fall 2022, the start of my senior year. POLI 143 — New Modes of International Conflict: Cyber, Space, and Robots — with Professor Gartzke. The course examined how emerging technologies are reshaping the nature of international competition and warfare. These are excerpts from weekly discussion posts, presented largely as written — short, argumentative, and very much products of a particular moment. Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine had happened eight months earlier. The grey zone discussion in week 8 landed differently as a result. I made a few minor edits, but this is an interesting reflection on the work done in Uni -- and how different my life is now. I'd like to note that I'm not particularly fond of Poli-Sci, but I ended up also pursuing a Masters in International Affairs -- the irony is blatant.

Week 1: Is it better to be safe through power or accommodation?

Power is the ultimate determinant of safety. The ability to choose between power and accommodation in itself indicates a high degree of control a nation has over its own security. Take diplomacy as the example: there must be "some common interest, if only in the avoidance of mutual damage," in order for all parties to leave with a satisfactory result. While some countries initially may not need to bargain as a result of favorably skewed military strength, they will eventually accommodate relatively equally-matched opposition to avoid the potential of large-scale conflict. Diplomacy requires communicating a potential hindrance in a manner that, rather than outwardly displaying strength, convinces the other side of one's potential — which brings the argument back to power and control as the ultimate determining factor.

As Schelling states, "to be coercive, violence has to be anticipated" yet it "has to be avoidable by accommodation" — indicating a cyclical connection between the two ideas. Both safety-driven options stem from initial power displays, yet are then intertwined to maintain relative balance. A nation presented with the two options must already have a degree of power, thereby allowing them to either remain far from or embroiled in conflict. It is thus better to be safe through power — which then allows for diplomatic accommodation and the hope of defense from external and internal threats.

Week 2: Can one ever really "win" a war?

Regardless of the outcome, there is no real "win" in war. Warfare is a means to declare superiority over another entity — driven oftentimes by a false sense of moral or historical righteousness that translates into a forced imbalance of power. A cost-benefit analysis may indicate that the loss of resources and personnel is not a strong enough deterrent against the benefits of a successful outcome. Yet these rationales cannot overshadow the impacts, however small, that war has on the individual and community — regardless of the side.

Warfare is akin to dominoes, creating ripples of change, not always positive, that affect the course of history both globally and personally. The loss of lives and resources, however small in the face of success, provides reason to believe that it is not possible to truly win a war. Even given triumph, the victor may be considered a continual threat due to the resulting imbalance of power — creating the potential for further warfare, a vicious cycle that ends only in complete destruction. The victor shall gain the spoils, but the success can only be short-lived in the face of what loss and imbalance does to society as a whole. The question of what "winning" truly entails does not resolve cleanly. It never has.

Week 6: Why has space yet to be thoroughly weaponized? Will this change?

Space has yet to be thoroughly weaponized because of intelligence and the effects of possession or ignorance. Although it is not likely for the current situation to change rapidly, the world is moving towards the increased militarization of space, and with it, forms of weaponization that are newer and harder to classify.

At the moment, weaponization takes the form of intelligence and surveillance — a key part of defense since the mid-twentieth century. The utilization of spying as a form of weaponized conflict abatement or instigation depends on the perspective of the viewer and the ultimate outcome, but typically is used "to win, not to warn." The use of surveillance in the sky is a form of warning that hints at technologically fueled warfare and signals power to potential adversaries. As Gartzke notes, a "potential aggressor that is denied the element of surprise should be less likely to win a conflict."

At the same time, the very implementation of surveillance indicates a lack of trust and mediation across the globe. Given that further intelligence gathering is inevitable, it will lead to more weaponization in space and thereby an increase in the speed at which we move towards conflict — an ironic opposing conclusion to the initial endeavor. The technology meant to deter becomes, in aggregate, the engine of escalation.

Week 8: How much violence is "optimal"?

The discussion of optimal violence refers to what scholars call the "grey zone" — an intermediate state between peace and conflict, wherein actor motives are potentially unclear, the level of engagement blurs treaty obligations, and the question of how much violence is actually admissible in the modern world remains deliberately unanswered. These types of conflicts have evolved to focus on hybrid attacks: social media influence operations, cyberattacks, smaller skirmishes that don't result in full-scale conflict — which all involved parties are generally less eager to initiate.

The grey zone is optimal for some actors precisely because it allows them to remain relevant and engaged in goals that could theoretically be resolved through open warfare, without incurring the full cost of that choice. By avoiding "real" violence, an uneasy standard of minor conflict has been established — creating an avoidance of true power dynamic resolution and allowing players to issue strategic threats that result in stagnation. The Cold War is the obvious historical analogue. Russia's posture before the full-scale invasion of Ukraine is the more recent one — and a reminder that grey zones are not stable indefinitely. These shadow wars produce ripple effects, such as Russia's aggression triggering renewed NATO solidarity, that eventually push actors out of ambiguity and into something more definitive.

As such, while it is difficult to quantify "optimal violence," the grey zone represents the closest thing to a working answer the current international order has produced — a semblance of peace held together by the shared reluctance to find out what comes next.