National Security Implications of COVID-19

The CESCI research team (Cynthia Buckley, Ralph Clem, and I) published a blog post on the Minerva Research Initiative's Owl in the Olive Tree that builds on our current funded project. In it, we introduce the idea of "white zone" competition:

"If one imagines a continuum from peace at the left and multi-domain warfare at the right with the gray zone somewhere in the middle, we envision a 'white zone' at the 'far left of boom' (Buckley, Clem, and Herron 2020), and see that as an arena within which strategic competition also occurs."

We further discuss how Russia has entered "white zone" competition using disinformation and how buttressing state capacity may be a critical counter-measure.