A team of Minerva-funded researchers, led by Jonathan Wilkenfeld, Egle Murauskaite and Devin Ellis from the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism released a report on a three-year Minerva Research Initiative study of escalation management in gray zone conflict and crisis. The study focused on great power competition in conflicts that unfold in the space between war and peace, with state actors using many different types of power to achieve political and security objectives. The project report includes an outline of a Gray Zone Tool Kit for U.S. policy makers on data-informed and empirically tested options that are available for managing escalation and deterrence in competition short of armed conflict. Together with a new conceptual escalation management model developed through this research, the Gray Zone Tool Kit includes a modeling platform to help strategists and planners in addressing the factors that drive complex conflict situations. It allows planners and strategists to explore those factors that cause international competition or conflict that can manifest as unanticipated, and often counterintuitive, outcomes.
Use this link to view the full report: https://www.start.umd.edu/publication/escalation-management-gray-zone
Associated Minerva-funded project:
What Actions Deter? Moving from Theory to Casual Understanding of Shaping Decision Calculus