Gray Zone Conflict & Intel Midterm

What is the four-letter acronym that stands for the traditional instruments of national power?

DIME (Diplomatic, Informational, Military, Economic)

T or F: Under Vladimir Putin, Russia has employed its own instruments of national power, such as cyber intrusion, the use of private military contractors, “separatists” in Ukraine, and online trolls.

True

What was the last name of this Chief of the General Staff, for whom the “____________ Doctrine” is named?

Gerasimov

T or F: Gray zone conflict received its name primarily because it falls into the “gray zone” between peace and war.

True

T or F: One of the eight characteristics of gray zone conflict is that Gray zone campaigns always involve the use of military forces.

False

T or F: Another one of the eight characteristics of gray zone campaigns is that they target specific vulnerabilities in the targeted countries.

True

T or F: Another frequently used term for gray zone conflict is hybrid warfare, which means the same thing as gray zone conflict.

False

T or F: Hybrid warfare has been around for a very long time; for example, in United States history, both the French and Indian War and the Revolutionary War were hybrid conflicts.

True

T or F: Some of the common features of hybrid warfare include:
• Multiplicity of actors (not just soldiers in uniform)
• Blurs the distinctions between types of armed conflict
• Conventional, irregular forces, and civilians may all be involved

True

Carl von Klausewitz was a Prussian staff officer and strategist. One of the things he wrote about was something he called trinitarian conflict. What were the three elements of this “trinity”?

1. Government

2. Military

3. Population

T or F: Asymmetric warfare refers to a conflict between two belligerents that have different resources and capabilities. In such a conflict, each belligerent seeks to take advantage of, and attack, the other’s weaknesses (rather than attack their enemy’s strengths). The Bible story of David and Goliath is an example of asymmetric warfare.

True

Name the five conflict domains.

1. Land
2. Sea
3. Air
4. Space
5. Cyber

Which generation of warfare does the following describe?
• Timeframe: 1648-1860
• Conflict domains: Land + Sea
• Early industrial age
• War was waged by nation-states
• Napoleonic warfare (levée en masse)
• Smooth-bore, relatively short-range weapons (muskets, cannon)
• Troops marched and fought in tight quarters

1st generation warfare

One reason the Azerbaijan-Armenia conflict of 2020 can be considered significant to strategists is because:
a. It demonstrated how technology can be used ingeniously in a conflict
b. Azerbaijan’s drones (costing hundreds of dollars) proved to be a cost-effective way to attack and destroy Armenian tanks (which cost millions of dollars each)
c. Azerbaijan’s drones quickly wiped out 1/3 of Armenia’s tanks
d. All of the above
e. None of the above

All of the above

What are the names of each phase in the Department of Defense’s six-phase planning construct for conflict?
1. Phase 0: ____________
2. Phase I: ____________
3. Phase II: ____________
4. Phase III: ____________
5. Phase IV: ____________
6. Phase V: ____________

1. Shape

2. Deter

3. Seize the initiative

4. Dominate

5. Stabilize

6. Enable civil authority

What type of warfare:
• Is primarily focused on eroding the adversary’s power, will, and influence
• Rather than focusing on defeating the enemy’s armed forces, it aims at gaining the support of the population
• Can involve irregular forces, non-state actors, and civilians as combatants

Irregular conflict

Which of the following statements about the Cold War (1947-1991) is not true?
a. The Cold War was basically a bipolar, ideological struggle between the United States and the Soviet Union.
b. Proxy wars were common.
c. Nuclear wars were common.
d. Unlike his predecessors in the 1950s and 1960s, Soviet Secretary General Mikhail Gorbachev did not use Soviet troops to prop up fellow communist regimes in Eastern
Europe.
e. Anti-communist populations in East Germany, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, Romania, and Albania all overthrew communist regimes.

Nuclear wars were common

What kind of a war is described below? This type of war was relatively frequent during the Cold War.
• A third party intervenes in a conflict in another country to influence the strategic outcome in favor of its preferred faction.
• A conflict between two foreign powers is waged inside a third country.

Proxy war

Which of the following are true statements about the Syrian civil war (2010 – present)?
a. The Syrian conflict is a proxy war
b. The Syrian conflict is a civil war
c. The Syrian conflict is a sectarian war
d. All of the above
e. None of the above

All of the above

Which of the following are true statements about the Syrian civil war (2010 – present)?
a. Some countries have been militarily involved in the conflict.
b. Some non-state actors have been militarily involved in the conflict.
c. Some countries have been funding one or more of the warring factions in the conflict.
d. All of the above
e. Choices “a” and “b” only.

All of the above

Which of the following terms is described by the language provided below?
• U.S. armed forces in uniform openly conduct a military operation
• Soldiers are under the command of a U.S. military commander
• The U.S. does not deny that its forces are conducting the operation

Traditional Military Activity (TMA)

Which of the following terms is described by the language provided below?
• The victim knows that it had been subjected to an attack
• There is some obvious, tangible damage
• The attacker has plausible deniability (“It wasn’t us!”)
• The attacker has reasons why it does not want to accept responsibility for the attack

Covert action

Which of the following terms is described by the language provided below?
• The focus is on keeping the operation secret
• The victim should never discover they had been attacked

Clandestine activity

Which of the following are examples of how technology changed warfare?
a. Spurs made cavalry possible
b. Cannon ended the utility of castles
c. Airpower ended the era of the battleship
d. All of the above
e. Choices “a” and “b” only

All of the above

Which of the following statements is not true regarding the 1991 Gulf War?
a. Iraq had the world’s 4th-largest army
b. Iraq had fought Iran for eight years, and was combat-experienced
c. Heavy Coalition losses were projected
d. Saddam Hussein fully expected that Coalition Forces would attack from western Iraq and encircle his forces deployed in Kuwait
e. The Coalition forces executed a deception plan

Saddam Hussein fully expected the Coalition Forces would attack from western Iraq and encircle his forces deployed in Kuwait

How many NATO soldiers were deployed into Kosovo during the 78-day air campaign waged against Serbia in 1999?
a. None
b. Between 0 and 1,000
c. Between 1,000 and 10,000
d. 13,475
e. Less than 100,000

None

Which of the following are factors contributing to countries employing Gray Zone strategies?
a. Adversaries don’t want to confront superior Western technology on the battlefield
b. Although they don’t want to go to war, adversaries still have strategic objectives they want to pursue
c. Gray zone strategy enables them to try and achieve those objectives without having to go to war
d. All of the above

All of the above

What does the acronym OSRD stand for?
a. Office of Scientific Research and Development
b. Office of Strategic Reconnaissance and Deployment
c. Office of Special Research and Demolitions
d. Office of Secret Rocketry and Demolition
e. None of the above

Office of Scientific Research and Development

T or F: OSRD was noteworthy because it brought together leading minds from the military, academia, and the private sector to work on specific research projects in support of the war effort.

True

Name three of the most significant technological contributions of OSRD during the Second World War.
a. _______________
b. _______________
c. _______________

a. The atomic bomb

b. Radar

c. The proximity fuse

In June 2020, authorities from this country diverted a commercial airliner flying through its airspace and forced it to land so that police could board the aircraft and arrest a well-known critic of that’s country’s authoritarian government. In response, the U.S. and EU countries stopped flying to that country. Which country was this?

Belarus

In 2015-2016, this country “weaponized” refugees by sending 4,000 asylum seekers from Middle Eastern countries across the border into Norway. Because that country’s laws prohibited crossing the border on foot, the asylum seekers were all sent into Norway on bicycles. In 2016, that country did the same thing to Finland. Which country did this?

Russia

In 2021, this country “weaponized” refugees by dispatching thousands of them into the neighboring countries of Poland and Lithuania. Observers noted that police from this country were observed leading these refugees to the border. Which country did this?

Belarus

T or F: The proliferation of cybercurrency (like Bitcoin) makes ransomware attacks easier because attackers can now be paid in ways that cannot be easily traced back to them.

True

Name the six pillars of Information Operations.
1. ___________
2. ___________
3. ___________
4. ___________
5. ___________
6. ___________

1. Psychological operations (PSYOP)
2. Propaganda
3. Military deception (MILDEC)
4. Operational security (OPSEC)
5. Computer network operations (CNO)
6. Electronic warfare (EW)

T or F: The purpose of Information Operations is to influence, disrupt, corrupt, or usurp adversarial decision-making while protecting our own.

True

(Fill in the blank) Information Operations are sometimes called ___________ management.

Perception

Electronic warfare has three disciplines. Counter-IED, electronic jamming, GPS spoofing, and anti-radiation missiles all belong to which of those three disciplines?

Electronic attack (EA)

Which of the following could be considered successful Information Operations?
a. In 1917, Great Britain persuaded the Wilson Administration to declare war on Germany by delivering news of the intercepted Zimmermann telegram, in which Germany had encouraged Mexico to join in the war against the United States and offered Mexico several U.S. states as an incentive.
b. In 1990, the moving testimony to Congress by a teenaged girl named Nayirah inflamed passions and increased support for U.S. participation in the Gulf War. (Only after the war did Congress learn that Nayirah the “refugee” was actually the daughter of a Kuwaiti government official.)
c. Soviet “active measures” against the West during the Cold War.
d. In 2016, Russian attempts to influence the U.S. presidential election.
e. Between 2014 and 2018, ISIS social media campaigns intended to gain public support and recruits.
f. All of the above

All of the above

What are conduits in the context of Information Operations? (1) Briefly explain what a conduit is, and (2) provide an example of a conduit.

• A conduit is a pathway for delivering a “message” to the target audience of an IO campaign

• Examples of conduits:
  • The news media
  • Diplomatic channels
  • Agents of influence
  • Intelligence channels

Russian forces have used electronic warfare (EW) in both Ukraine and Syria. Which of the following are considered EW techniques?
a. Jam and intercept communications signals
b. Jam and spoof GPS receivers
c. Tap into cellular networks
d. Hack into cell phones and leaving threatening messages
e. Launch photon torpedoes
f. All of the above
g. Choices “a” through “d” only

Choices “a” through “d” only

T or F: Psychological operations, or PSYOP, was a major contributor to the success of the military deception operation the Coalition conducted against Saddam Hussein during the 1991 Gulf War.

True

Which category of propaganda:
• Is correctly attributed to its sponsor
• Is truthful (but may not tell the whole story)
• Is disseminated by U.S. government outlets like Radio Free Europe, Radio Liberty

White propaganda

Which of the following were examples of propaganda of the deed?
a. 1776 Battle of Trenton (when Washington crossed the Delaware)
b. 1942 Doolittle raid on Tokyo
c. 2001 Al Qaida attacks on 9/11
d. The 2011 raid to kill bin Laden
e. All of the above

All of the above

In 1936, Hitler relied on _____________ when he sent German troops into the Rhineland in such a way that fooled Britain and France into thinking the German Army was much larger than it actually was. (One of the techniques the German army used was to have its soldiers march through the Rhineland and then get secretly trucked back to the starting point to march through it again.) In 1936, the French Army was far larger than the army of Nazi Germany, but because of this method the Germans used to reoccupy the Rhineland, the
British and French decided not to resist Hitler’s move.

Deception

Who famously said, “All warfare is based on deception”?
a. Julius Caesar
b. Sun Zi
c. Carl von Klausewitz
d. George Patton
e. Winston Churchil

Sun Zi

Which of the following are ways that Russia has employed deception?
a. In March 2014, Russia sent the “Little Green Men” (Russian soldiers without insignia on their uniforms) to take control of Ukrainian military bases. Russia denied these were their soldiers, but then several months later they acknowledged they had been Russian special forces.
b. Russia sent dozens of military trucks painted white as NGO vehicles to deliver “humanitarian goods” to pro- Russian Ukrainian separatists. The trucks actually carried
weapons and ammunition.
c. Russia has inflatable tanks, submarines, and other equipment use to “fool” reconnaissance aircraft into thinking these decoy devices are actually real.
d. All of the above
e. None of the above

All of the above

In 1944, the Allies used ___________ to prevent the Germans from learning who would actually participate in the upcoming landing in France, where that landing would occur, and when it would occur.
a. Electronic warfare
b. Deception
c. Operational security (OPSEC)
d. Gray propaganda
e. None of the above

Operational security (OPSEC)

T or F: Personally Identifiable Information, or PII, is information about you that could be used to harm you if it got into the wrong hands. Examples of PII are:
a. Your driver’s license
b. Your social security number
c. Your credit card information
d. Your passport number

True

There are three categories of computer network operations (CNO). What are they?
a. _______________
b. _______________
c. _______________

a. Computer Network Exploitation (CNE)
b. Computer Network Attack (CNA)
c. Computer Network Defense (CND)

What is the name of the computer network operation (CNO) category that is defined as follows:
• This is a clandestine activity (that is, it is meant to be done without the target realizing it)
• It is conducted to commit:
• Reconnaissance
• Espionage
• It may involve the theft of intellectual property (or secrets)

Computer Network Exploitation (CNE)

Cyber operations are appealing for inclusion in a gray zone strategy because:
a. They offer the potential for high gain
b. They are low risk activities
c. It is difficult to identify the source of a cyberattack
d. Nation states have plausible deniability when a cyberattack has been detected
e. Cyber intrusions don’t meet the threshold for war
f. All of the above

All of the above

Cyber activities can have kinetic effects. This means that a cyber weapon can cause physical damage, or even destruction, of the targeted system. Which of the following was not a cyberattack that resulted in physical damage or
destruction?
a. The 2007 Aurora project conducted by Idaho National Labs
b. The 2010 Stuxnet attack on Iran’s nuclear power industry
c. The ransomware attack on Colonial Pipeline
d. The 2015 Russian cyberattack on Ukrainian electric power network that denied power to 250,000 people

The ransomware attack on Colonial Pipeline

T or F: One way that nefarious actors could harm Western economies is by disrupting maritime commerce. Three ways that a nefarious actor could do so are GPS spoofing, disrupting (or spoofing) the Automatic Identification System (AIS) used by ships, or by infecting a maritime shipping company’s computers with malware or ransomware.

True