Janes – The World of Intelligence

The New Battleground: Grey Zone and Hybrid Warfare Explained

In this episode, Elizabeth Braw, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, explains the distinction between hybrid warfare—combining kinetic and non‑kinetic tools such as cyber attacks, disinformation, and sabotage—and grey‑zone aggression, which operates below NATO’s Article 5 threshold and often relies on plausible deniability. She outlines how Russia has escalated from purely digital attacks to physical sabotage across Europe, while China, Iran, North Korea, and even Belarus employ a mix of cyber theft, diaspora intimidation, and migration weaponization to pursue strategic goals. The hosts discuss why these tactics are attractive to state actors—disrupting societies, extracting wealth, and projecting power without triggering a conventional war response—and highlight the growing challenge of public awareness and resilience.