China is engaged in a campaign to take control of large portions of the South China Sea, including significant portions of the exclusive economic zones of other countries, by conducting various gray zone operations that have allowed China to exert control over the region while avoiding a conventional military response from the United States and its allies and partners. China's use of various gray zone tactics to assert its territorial claims and achieve its political agenda includes maritime aggression, cyber operations, economic coercion, and online propaganda. As a matter of policy, China views these actions as a continuation of politics rather than warfare, and China's efforts are purposefully designed to be below the threshold of war. The authors identify approaches for the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command (USINDOPACOM) and other elements of the U.S. military to counter and deter Chinese maritime gray zone operations. The authors focus on approaches that encompass presence operations, transparency initiatives that publicize malign Chinese behaviors, efforts to spur U.S. partners and allies to help counter China's gray zone effort, and the use of non-lethal weapons to directly confront and deter China's aggressive behaviors. To conduct this study, the authors conducted an in-depth literature review of China's maritime gray zone operations, hosted an online forum of gray zone and China experts to discuss potential counter strategies, and conducted interviews with more than 45 experts from the USINDOPACOM and its subordinate service components and others in the defense community.

The authors assess trends in how U.S. allies and partners view the evolving competition with China and Russia and identify opportunities that the United States and the Department of the Air Force (DAF) can leverage for cooperation and coalition-building. Although many countries share U.S. concerns, their perspectives of the threat posed by China and Russia vary depending on their region, history, economy, and other factors. Current U.S. and DAF security cooperation (SC) planning efforts focus on how countries can align their policies, priorities, and investments with those of the United States. Ensuring that DAF organizations also incorporate these countries' perspectives into planning can help the DAF more effectively direct its SC activities and resources in an era of strategic competition. This research was completed in September 2022. It has not been subsequently revised.

The United States is in the midst of a shift in strategic focus from countering terrorism to countering China and Russia in the Indo-Pacific and Europe. Africa, a location for great-power competition during the Cold War, is yet again summoning more interest from the United States' great-power competitors — China and Russia. This report — part of a four-volume series — explores where and how the United States, China, and Russia are competing for influence in Africa; what kinds of interests they have in the continent; what kinds of diplomatic, informational, military, and economic influence-seeking measures they are using; where and why competition might turn into conflict; what form that conflict might take; and what implications the findings have for the U.S. government at large, the joint force, and the Department of the Air Force in particular. This research was completed in September 2021, just after the Taliban's takeover of Afghanistan and before the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. The report has not been subsequently revised.