ESSAY: The Gray Zone: The War That Won’t Be Named

A physical altercation without firearms

According to Manila, a Chinese coast guard vessel directed a water cannon at the BRP Datu Dumangsil for more than two minutes near Bajo de Masinloc—a physically aggressive act that did not involve any firearms and which, to date, has not been independently verified. A water cannon does not kill anyone, but it can still sink a ship.

This absence of firearms largely explains why such incidents remain below the threshold for a military response, even though their physical and symbolic intensity can be considerable for the crews directly targeted. The absence of firearms does not make an incident trivial for those who experience it.

A pattern that wears down patience without ever breaking it

The repetition of such incidents, documented over several years in the Bajo de Masinloc region, illustrates the logic of attrition characteristic of the gray zone: each individual incident remains manageable, but their accumulation gradually erodes the operational capacity and political patience of the targeted party. Wearing down without ever breaking remains the discreet objective of each repeated incident.

An exercise that is never neutral

The live-fire drills conducted by China on July 23 and 24 near Dongshan Island—officially described as routine military exercises—also fit into this “gray zone” logic: an exercise is not an act of war, but its timing and location send a clear political message. A military exercise is never just an exercise when its timing speaks louder than its ammunition.

This deliberate ambiguity between legitimate training and a calculated show of force is the very essence of the gray zone: each party can plausibly deny hostile intent while producing a real deterrent or intimidating effect. Denying intent while producing its effect remains the very heart of this strategy.

The Median Line as an Eroded Symbolic Border

The repeated crossing of the median line of the Taiwan Strait—six times in a single day on July 24, according to Taiwanese counts—illustrates how a purely symbolic and non-legally binding border can nonetheless shape decades of military behavior before gradually eroding. An eroded symbolic border remains, despite everything, a border that once mattered for a long time.

Treaties Designed for Clear Aggression, Not Ambiguity

Mutual defense treaties, such as the one between the United States and the Philippines, were historically designed to respond to clear-cut armed aggression—a legal framework ill-suited to the diffuse and cumulative nature of the “gray zone” incidents currently being documented in the region. A treaty designed for invasion doesn’t always know how to respond to a water cannon.

This structural mismatch partly explains the persistent hesitation of Western allies to formally invoke their defense obligations in the face of incidents that, taken individually, always seem insufficiently serious to warrant such action. Each incident, taken on its own, always seems too minor to justify a major response.

The Risk of a Cumulative Precedent of Inaction

Every incident that goes unpunished creates a precedent of inaction that complicates the response to the next one—a cycle that, according to several regional analysts, could encourage the aggressor to continue gradually expanding the scope of what it considers tolerable without serious consequences.

Advancing Without Ever Triggering a Unified Coalition

The gray-zone strategy allows Beijing to gradually expand its influence and operational presence in the region without ever crossing a threshold dramatic enough to prompt the formation of a unified international coalition determined to firmly oppose it. Advancing in small steps avoids the backlash that a major move would provoke.

This gradual approach constitutes a form of strategic rationality that is perfectly coherent from Beijing’s perspective, maximizing territorial gains and influence while minimizing the risk of direct military escalation with powers possessing superior capabilities. What appears irrational from the outside is often highly calculated from the inside.

Denial that safeguards international legitimacy

Maintaining sufficient ambiguity also allows Beijing to preserve plausible deniability before international bodies, with each incident presented as a legitimate response, a routine operation, or an isolated error rather than a deliberate policy of escalation.

Material wear and tear that goes unrecorded in war statistics

The material costs imposed by the gray zone—wear and tear on ships, crews, and surveillance budgets—do not appear in any official statistics on armed conflict, making it difficult to convey their true scale to the public and Western decision-makers. A nameless war does not produce war statistics, but it still generates costs.

This statistical invisibility constitutes an additional advantage for the party pursuing the gray zone strategy, as the actual cost imposed on the adversary remains largely absent from Western public and parliamentary debates. What does not appear in any dashboard eventually disappears from the list of priorities.

A psychological toll that builds up without ever reaching a peak

The psychological toll imposed on populations and crews directly exposed to this constant pressure builds up without ever reaching the climax of a dramatic event that would force a broader collective awareness in the West.

Frequency as the Most Reliable Indicator

According to several regional military analysts, the frequency of incidents is the most reliable indicator for distinguishing a truly isolated incident from a deliberate “gray zone” strategy, as systematic repetition over several months or years reveals a structural rather than accidental intent. An isolated incident occurs once. A strategy repeats itself, week after week.

This documented frequency—in the case of the incidents around Taiwan and the Philippines this particular week—far exceeds what chance or coincidence could plausibly explain.

Geographic Coordination as a Second Indicator

The apparent geographic coordination between the incidents that occurred simultaneously near Taiwan and in the Philippines this week constitutes a second indicator suggesting a coordinated strategic approach rather than a series of independent and unrelated coincidences.

Precedents in Which Ambiguity Preceded Open Escalation

Several historical precedents show that “gray zone” strategies, maintained over an extended period, have sometimes preceded a more overt escalation when the party employing them believes it has sufficiently tested and weakened its adversary’s resistance to cross a more decisive threshold. Prolonged ambiguity sometimes gives way to sudden and brutal clarity.

This historical lesson does not guarantee an identical repetition in the current context, but it warrants particular vigilance in the face of any sudden acceleration in the pace or intensity of documented incidents.

Other precedents where ambiguity simply persisted

Other historical precedents, conversely, show gray-zone situations that persisted for decades without ever leading to open escalation—a useful reminder that the gray zone does not always automatically lead to a broader armed conflict.

Systematically document incidents rather than reacting on a case-by-case basis

A more effective response to the gray-zone strategy might lie in the systematic and public documentation of each incident, building over time a cumulative body of evidence substantial enough to justify a coordinated response, rather than treating each incident in isolation as insufficiently serious. Documenting each incident builds, over time, the body of evidence that no single incident alone can provide.

This cumulative approach would make it possible to partially circumvent the legal and political trap posed by treaties designed to address clear acts of aggression rather than diffuse and prolonged pressure.

Publicly Clarify Response Thresholds

Publicly clarifying, in advance, the precise thresholds that would trigger a stronger response would reduce the current uncertainty and could, according to several experts in strategic deterrence, produce a stronger deterrent effect than maintaining Western ambiguity symmetrical to that practiced by the aggressor.

The Lack of a Simple, Immediate Solution

This essay does not claim to offer a simple solution to a structural problem that persists precisely because it was designed to resist conventional responses, and any claim to a quick resolution would be more a matter of wishful thinking than rigorous analysis.

What this essay asserts, based on the facts available for this specific week, is that clearly identifying the phenomenon is a necessary—albeit insufficient—prerequisite for any more effective long-term response.

The Necessity of Living with Persistent Uncertainty

Living with the gray zone means accepting persistent uncertainty about its future evolution—an intellectually uncomfortable stance, but one that is likely more honest than the premature certainties often produced by the most black-and-white geopolitical analyses.

Words Chosen to Downplay Perceptions

The vocabulary officially used by Beijing—such as “special maritime law enforcement operations” rather than “blockade” or “intimidation”—illustrates how word choice actively contributes to the gray-zone strategy, discursively downplaying the perceived severity of the actions taken. The chosen vocabulary can sometimes be more effective than the action itself.

This battle over vocabulary is not trivial: it directly influences how the media, policymakers, and the public perceive the relative severity of each documented incident in the region. Calling a blockade a “routine operation” changes the response it elicits.

Media coverage that struggles to define the overall strategy

Western media coverage generally treats each incident in isolation—a water cannon here, live fire there—without always connecting these events within a comprehensive analysis of the “gray zone” strategy, which contributes to fragmenting the public’s perception of the phenomenon. Treating each incident in isolation prevents us from seeing the strategy that links them all.

This media fragmentation inadvertently reinforces the very effectiveness of the gray-zone strategy, which relies precisely on the impossibility of characterizing any single isolated incident as sufficiently serious. A strategy designed to fragment benefits directly from fragmented coverage.

A "gray zone" preceding a full-scale invasion

The precedent set by Ukraine—where years of pressure and gray-zone incidents preceded a full-scale invasion in 2022—offers a concrete example of how this type of strategy can, in certain contexts, serve as a prelude to a much more serious escalation. The Ukrainian example shows that the gray zone is not always an end in itself.

While some analysts dispute this parallel, pointing to major geographical and political differences, it warrants close attention to any acceleration in the pace of documented incidents around Taiwan and the Philippines.

A water cannon, live rounds, six crossings in a single day. None of these actions bears the name of the war. Together, however, they create a constant pressure that this absent name does nothing to make any less real.

The gray zone never declares itself. It takes hold, incident after incident, until it becomes the new normal. What has no name continues nonetheless to produce consequences. Refusing to name a form of pressure never prevents it from continuing to be exerted.

By Maxime Marquette, columnist