Operating AI in the Gray Zone: Drawing Clear Lines Before They Blur
Morgan Plummer argues in his War on the Rocks article, “Operating AI in the gray zone: Drawing Clear Lines Before They Blur,” that the AI problem is not on a near-future battlefield—it is already here. Plummer discusses AI’s role in the gray zone where influence operations, economic coercion, and cyber campaigns converge, blurring the lines between peace and war.
Using Michael Walzer’s Spheres of Justice, Plummer’s key warning is that AI is too portable: capabilities that may be appropriate in combat become corrosive when repurposed for peacetime manipulation. He concludes that we must urgently establish clear lines across domains before norms harden, explicitly defining what should be prohibited, restricted, and permissive in AI-enabled statecraft.
For a peek inside the black box of AI and gray zone operations, read these five recent SWJ essays:
– “Dark Pragmatism and the Ethics of Cognitive Warfare” (Oct. 31, 2025) — Grapples with the core dilemma Plummer flags: how liberal democracies compete in cognitive/information conflict without becoming what they’re fighting.
– “Bridging the Geopolitical Divide in Cyber Governance” (Oct. 16, 2025) — Makes the “lines and norms” case in cyberspace: competing visions, low trust, and the stabilizing role of coalitions and shared standards.
– “The Ethical Imperative of Information: Just War Considerations for Global Information Strategy” (Oct. 15, 2025) — Explicitly frames information warfare as a gray-zone tool and argues for ethical constraints to achieve objectives while minimizing harm.
– “The Countdown to Venezuela’s Digital-AI Authoritarian Future” (Sep. 2, 2025) — A case study of how AI “portability” enables domestic control; how biometric surveillance, AI analytics, and digital repression to preempt dissent, which are exactly the kind of sphere-blurring Plummer is warning about.
– “Demystifying China’s Gray Zone Aggression: Water Cannons, Ramming, and the Use of the Force” (Aug. 6, 2025) — A concrete “where’s the threshold?” piece that argues ambiguity can enable coercion and that deterrence may require clearer definitions of what counts as force.
