In recent years, the People's Republic of China (PRC) has shown a rising propensity to resort to so-called "gray zone" (huise didai 灰色地帶) operations against the Republic of China (ROC) government on Taiwan. Gray zone tactics are non-military coercive actions beyond normal diplomatic, economic, and security measures that remain below the threshold of war. Led by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), the PRC has ramped up its use of gray zone tactics versus Taiwan in order to shift the power balance of the dispute and gain strategic advantages—whether to convince Taipei that it must expeditiously "reunify" with the mainland, or else enable a future PRC war against the island. Gray zone operations serve as one of the seven core elements of CCP political warfare—alongside information manipulation, "lawfare," economic coercion, united front work, espionage,and cyber operations—and are intended to reinforce the others by eroding Taiwan's exercise of territorial sovereignty, wearing down its military and law enforcement resources, and eroding the sense of security held by its citizens.

RAND and the Observer Research Foundation (ORF) convened an in-person Track II Dialogue on January 12, 2024, at ORF's office in New Delhi, India. ORF is a nonpartisan think tank that focuses on security, strategy, economy, development, energy, and global governance. Sponsored by the U.S. Department of State, this dialogue addressed Russian advanced conventional weapon proliferation and allowed participants to present perspectives on the security environment in Asia and how the war in Ukraine has changed this environment. The Track II Dialogue consisted of three panels of both RAND and ORF experts. The first panel discussed the impact of Russia's continued war in Ukraine on Russian weapon exports and the potential for China to benefit from countries' efforts to pivot away from Russian weapons. The second panel discussed India's decisions to import systems or develop systems indigenously. The final panel discussed the impact of the war in Ukraine on Asia and Asia-Pacific security broadly. These conference proceedings contain six papers — three each by RAND and ORF authors — that were written for this dialogue. This publication provides a summary of the event, conclusions drawn from the dialogue, and the full text of all six papers. It can help inform foreign and defense policy officials in both the United States and India who are responsible for U.S.-Indian relations, bilateral defense cooperation, and defense policy.