Modern strategic competition is increasingly defined by persistent, ambiguous actions designed to weaken Alliance cohesion without triggering a military response. Sabotage of undersea cables in the Baltic Sea, GPS jamming and spoofing along the Eastern Flank, drone incursions over critical infrastructure in Eastern Europe, disinformation campaigns timed to elections in Romania, and cyber intrusions into logistics networks are not isolated incidents. They are components of hybrid warfare designed to exploit the ambiguity between peace and war, deny attribution to their perpetrators and erode Alliance cohesion one calibrated provocation at a time. This is the ‘grey zone’ where adversaries deliberately exploit seams in international law, national authorities and Alliance structures to achieve strategic objectives beneath the threshold of NATO’s Article 4 or 5.
Historically, Joint Air and Space Power has been viewed as the proven tool for high-intensity conventional deterrence and rapid crisis response, employed decisively once a threshold of conflict is crossed. That framing no longer entirely captures its value proposition. The evolution of hybrid warfare requires a fundamental shift in how NATO understands the role of Joint Air and Space Power. In the grey zone, air, space and other domain capabilities must be employed persistently to shape the strategic landscape, not held in reserve for a conventional response.
In hybrid conflict, success is harder to measure than targets destroyed or territory defended. During a hybrid warfare scenario, it will depend instead on the Alliance’s ability to maintain situational awareness, expose hostile activity, reassure Allies, preserve freedom of action and deny adversaries the strategic ambiguity upon which hybrid campaigns depend.
The challenge to the Alliance is this: how do we adapt an air domain traditionally built for high-tempo kinetic warfare to counter subtle, ambiguous and distributed hybrid threats? Addressing this question requires re-evaluating how air power, enhanced by multi-domain operations, can assert persistent presence, accelerate attribution, and provide calibrated response options.
The first requirement is persistent presence. Information advantage is the new high ground. One of the defining characteristics of hybrid conflict is ambiguity. Adversaries seek to obscure attribution and spread disinformation. They rely on the cover of darkness, remote airspace or plausible deniability to execute sub-threshold actions. To deny adversaries this operational space, NATO must maintain unyielding situational awareness. Joint Air and Space Power, closely coupled with the cyber domain, serves as the primary sensor layer for the Alliance.
Persistent intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) utilising uncrewed aerial systems, high-altitude platform systems (HAPS) and integrated space constellation capabilities ensures the grey zone will not remain opaque. Multi-Domain Operations (MDO) allow data gathered from the air to be fused with maritime, terrestrial, cyber and open-source intelligence in real time. By establishing a recognised air, space, and surface picture, Allies deny adversaries the element of surprise and erode their ability to operate undetected. Exposing adversary actions quickly strips away plausible deniability and prevents adversaries from controlling the narrative.
Seeing is only half of it. What follows is attribution. An attack or intrusion that cannot be definitively attributed to a sponsor leaves political leaders hesitant, divides alliances and delays coordinated action.
Persistent presence and multi-domain situational awareness provided by air and space platforms are uniquely suited to gather high-fidelity, unclassified or rapidly declassifiable evidence of enemy activity in the grey zone. Whether capturing imagery of illicit maritime transfers, tracking GPS spoofing signals originating from foreign territory, or monitoring airspace incursions, Joint Air and Space Power provides the hard data required to expose adversary actions and support attribution, thereby preventing them from spreading disinformation.
This is where the digital frontier impacts NATO’s ability to operate at the edge where the contest is over what the Alliance can see, prove and say before an adversary controls the account. Seeing and proving are within the Alliance’s remit. Saying is harder: how quickly can Allies process, declassify and release what they hold, and are they willing to do so at the speed the contest demands?
Exposure alone does not deter. The third requirement is a calibrated response. One of the central dilemmas of sub-threshold competition is avoiding overreaction while preventing incremental appeasement. A heavy-handed military response to a minor hybrid provocation risks unintended escalation, whereas a tepid response invites further malign action.
Joint Air and Space Power offers political decision-makers a broad spectrum of flexible, non-kinetic options for strategic signalling. The mobility and responsiveness of air platforms allow commanders to scale military presence up or down rapidly, communicating clear boundaries to adversaries while maintaining control over the escalation ladder.
None of this is straightforward in practice. Translating the theoretical advantages of air power into grey zone effectiveness requires overcoming significant legal, doctrinal, custodial, and structural friction.
Legal authority is the first obstacle. Divergent national authorities, restrictive rules of engagement and varying thresholds across Allies for intercepting or disabling non-attributable targets, drones above all, can delay a military response beyond a decision-maker’s window of opportunity. Whether Allies can align those authorities quickly enough for a commander to act inside that window is unresolved, and it is a political question before it is a military one.
The second is a matter of doctrine. Allied air forces do not share identical interpretations of grey zone doctrine or of the tactics, techniques, and procedures that follow from it. Operating seamlessly below the threshold of conflict requires standardised protocols for non-kinetic engagement, signals intelligence sharing and defensive counter-hybrid air operations.
The third is a question of control. Much of the infrastructure behind persistent presence and rapid attribution, including commercial satellite imagery, commercial space launch and communications, civilian-operated cyber sensors and networks, sits outside any military commander’s direct authority. Harmonising military requirements with civilian and commercial providers presents ongoing legal, operational and commercial complexity. The integration problem is the harder one: commercial space, non-military cyber networks and Allied air component architectures must function as a single decision system in scenarios that allow no time to negotiate access.
The fourth is structural. Traditional air force structures are optimised for high-end conflict, built around high-cost platforms and precision weapons. Using multi-role fighters to shadow low-cost uncrewed systems inverts the cost-imposition logic in the adversary’s favour. NATO must adapt its posture towards cost-effective, persistent platforms and command-and-control architectures agile enough to process multi-domain data at speed.
These frictions are not reasons to wait. Grey zone competition is under way, and the Alliance is already participating in it, whether it has willingly chosen to do so. What it has not settled is the force mix: how much high-end tactical capability and how much low-cost, high-endurance capacity does a persistent and affordable grey zone posture actually require? That question is worth this panel’s time because the answer determines whether NATO can sustain a presence in the grey zone or merely respond to it.
