Gray Zones and Salami Slicing

In the world of international relations, a “gray zone” is a category of behavior in which forces (usually governments and their militaries) can act in opposition to each other without crossing a red line that would cause them to come into direct military conflict.

Much of the Cold War between the US, USSR, and their respective allies arguably took place across a series of gray zones, both sides doing all they could to taunt and weaken and even attack the other, without ever crossing into overt fighting; even the wars they fought were all proxy wars, because both knew that stepping into formal combat could be world-ending.

There’s quite a lot of gray zone behavior in the South China Sea right now, as well, as China faces off with the Philippines, Japan, Taiwan, and pretty much everyone else in the region, claiming the whole of the Sea as its territorial waters while those neighbor nations (and their allies, like the US) do the same in reverse: setting up their own fortifications, making a big scene about rolling giant ships through the area, and engaging in other, similar behaviors that make little sense except as a statement saying, “You don’t own this area, see?”

Sometimes this gray zoning erupts into something a lot closer to actual combat, as has been the case, recently, with Chinese ships slamming (“accidentally”) into those owned by the Philippines, and the use of water-cannons (in lieu of actual cannons) to force their opposition to flee without ever firing an actual, line-crossing shot.

There’s also often an element of what’s called “salami slicing” in these tactics, which means that a collection of small acts—while individually weighing in as gray zone maneuvers—can over time add up to something more substantial (despite each move being defensible as just a mistake or misunderstanding or some other kind of non-offensive, non-aggressive act).

The slow buildup of existing and artificial islands into military outposts by the Chinese government in the South China Sea, for instance, could be described as a long-term salami slicing exercise, because while each small move seems, unto itself, like a relatively minor issue not worth the effort of fighting over, years of investing in this network of heavily armed oceanic outposts has given the Chinese navy a substantial advantage throughout the region, while also denying its opposition the ability to create their own mini spheres-of-influence (with accompanying stockpiles of fuel, hardware, and ammunition).

We often see the same tactics deployed in politics when a party or politician slowly works easily defensible, seemingly too-small-to-fuss-over policies and budget-items into legislation, over time building up the support, resources, and precedent for some larger aim that—had it arrived all at once, would have faced significant pushback and perhaps never become a reality as a consequence.

Gray zones and salami slicing tactics are also sometimes employed at the interpersonal level: people using these sorts of tricks to establish social dynamics that favor them at work or within their relationships, each little step seemingly innocuous, but the grand total of their efforts much weightier and more substantial—even though it would have been impossible to point at any specific act that crossed the line as they slowly tweaked things in their favor.