April 10, 2015

Should America fight more like Iran? Pentagon official raises eyebrows.

Featuring Paul Scharre

The American military must become better at operating in a “gray zone” of war, one that sometimes calls for using “deception, infiltration, and persistent denial,” the Pentagon’s No. 2 official said in a little-noticed speech this week.

These are the sort of tactics that Russia has been using in Crimea and Ukraine, Deputy Defense Secretary Bob Work noted Wednesday in remarks at a strategy conference at the United States Army War College in Carlisle, Pa.

America’s adversaries today use “agents, paramilitaries, deception, infiltration, and persistent denial – staying within that so-called ‘gray zone,’ ” he told assembled officers. “That’s a zone in which we don’t typically operate, but one in which we must become more proficient.”

Read the full article at The Christian Science Monitor.

  • Paul Scharre

    Senior Fellow and Director, Technology and National Security Program

    Paul Scharre is a Senior Fellow and Director of the Technology and National Security Program at the Center for a New American Security. He is author of Army of None: Autonomou...