ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the broader tendencies and consequences that ethnic conflict has for modern warfare as states engage in hybrid tactics and grey zone strategies to support ethnic kin. Many of today’s ethnic conflicts can be described as either secessionist, into which external states and other international actors are drawn, or irredentist, where two or more states enter into war over an irredentist claim. This chapter argues that ethnic-based movements serve as a permissive condition for states to pursue grey zone conflict, based on a desire to shift or sustain the balance of power using political, economic, and cyber instruments of intervention. This is demonstrated through the cases of Russia’s grey zone interventions in Georgia, Ukraine, and the Baltic States. The chapter concludes by identifying some of the reasons why there is variation across these cases and why such strategies and tactics are difficult to deter.
