Fitton, Oliver and Lacy, Mark (2025) Gray Zone Geopolitics : Understanding Their Inevitable Consequences And Discovering An Alternative. PhD thesis, Lancaster University.
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Abstract
David Kilcullen argues that adversaries have bypassed the American way of war. For Kilcullen this signals the decline of US superiority. The US must find strategies that secure a soft landing. Advocates for the Gray Zone argue that the concept can assist in building strategy. But the Gray Zone is a contested concept. Should the US military abandon the Gray Zone concept? There is a problem within the Gray Zone debate. Critics treat the Gray Zone as a theory of conflict. This is inaccurate. It is geopolitical theory that describes a new world vision not a type of conflict. As a result, Gray Zone literature is ignorant to the problematic spatializing practice of the metaphor. This project fills this knowledge gap in the Gray Zone debate through the application of Critical Geopolitics. To answer the research question, an understanding of the US DoD’s definition of the Gray Zone was developed using a Grounded Theory document analysis methodology. The documents that contributed to the practical geopolitical process that produced the definition (the Gray Zone Strategic Multi-Layered Assessment) were analysed and key themes emerged. US foreign policy informed by the Gray Zone concept was assessed for recognition and solutions to these challenges. A substantive Grounded Theory was produced that explains the means used to bypass the American way of war. It does not rely on a geopolitical metaphor. The Gray Zone is revealed to be a thin geopolitical metaphor that obfuscates operations that target the US military’s decision-making process. The Gray Zone deceives US strategist. It results in militarized and ineffective strategies that doubles down on the American way of war, accelerating the decline of the US.
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