Small Wars in the Strategic Transition: U.S. Hemispheric Assertiveness and the Global Gray Zone

Abstract

The 2025 National Security Strategy and the 2026 National Defense Strategy represent a fundamental reorientation of American power toward restraint, hemispheric prioritization, and allied burden-sharing. The opening weeks of 2026 have validated a central strategic truth: when major powers signal restraint in some theaters, competitors intensify gray-zone operations globally to test boundaries and exploit perceived withdrawal. Recent U.S. actions in Venezuela, ongoing tensions with Iran, pressure on Greenland, and the first trilateral negotiations over Ukraine reveal both the opportunities and risks inherent in this strategic transition. The United States must prepare not for one type of conflict, but for a proliferation of small wars, limited operations, and ambiguous contests that will define the balance of power in the years ahead.

Introduction: The Strategic Revolution of January 2026

Within three weeks of January 2026, the United States executed a special operations raid to capture Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, threatened military intervention against Iranian nuclear reconstitution, pressured Denmarkover Greenland access, and facilitated the first trilateral talks between Russia and Ukraine. These events – simultaneous, aggressive, and deliberately calibrated – signal more than tactical opportunism. They represent the operational implementation of the strategic framework outlined in the 2025 National Security Strategy (NSS) and codified in the 2026 National Defense Strategy (NDS) released January 23.

The 2026 National Defense Strategy makes explicit what previous administrations implied: the United States will prioritize homeland defense, deter China in the Indo-Pacific, demand greater burden-sharing from allies, and revitalize the defense industrial base. What the strategy does not address – and what recent events illuminate – is the escalating competition in the gray zone, the space between peace and war where adversaries probe, coerce, and reshape regional orders below the threshold that triggers major U.S. intervention.

History demonstrates an uncomfortable pattern: when great powers attempt to avoid large wars through strategic restraint, they frequently encounter a proliferation of smaller ones. The limited conflicts of the early Cold War, proxy campaigns across Asia and Africa, and the incremental salami-slicing of territorial boundaries all emerged precisely when major powers signaled an unwillingness to escalate. Today’s environment mirrors that dynamic. As the United States signals restraint in some theaters while asserting dominance in its hemisphere, competitors are adjusting – not by avoiding confrontation, but by exploiting forms of coercion designed to evade direct conflict.

The Trump Corollary and Operation Absolute Resolve

On January 3, 2026, U.S. special operations forces conducted Operation Absolute Resolve, striking Venezuelan military infrastructure and capturing President Nicolás Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores. The operation, months in planning and involving CIA intelligence teams on the ground in Venezuela, represented the most audacious use of U.S. military force in Latin America in decades. President Trump justified the action as a law enforcement operation against narco-terrorism, stating the United States would “run the country until such time as we can do a safe, proper and judicious transition.”

The operation exemplifies what the National Defense Strategy calls the “Trump Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine” – a reassertion of U.S. prerogatives throughout the Western Hemisphere that goes beyond traditional notions of influence to include direct military action. The NDS explicitly states: “We will guarantee U.S. military and commercial access to key terrain, especially the Panama Canal, Gulf of America, and Greenland. We will provide President Trump with credible military options to use against narco-terrorists wherever they may be.”

Operation Absolute Resolve validates several strategic principles while simultaneously exposing critical gaps. On the positive side, the operation demonstrated U.S. capability for rapid, decisive action against clearly defined threats. The multi-month intelligence preparation, use of mockups for training, similar to the bin Laden raid, and flawless execution showcased American special operations excellence. The operation also signaled to hemispheric actors that the United States is willing to use military force unilaterally when its interests are threatened.

However, the operation’s aftermath reveals the challenges inherent in translating tactical success into strategic advantage. With Maduro removed but his regime largely intact – including Vice President Delcy Rodríguez, whom President Trump elevated despite her alleged narcotics connections – Venezuela faces uncertain political transition. The United States dismissed opposition leader María Corina Machado, the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize laureate, creating friction with democratic forces and raising questions about whether regime decapitation achieves lasting change. As one analysis noted, the operation may prove “managed authoritarianism” rather than democratic transition, leaving in place the coercive apparatus that enabled Maduro’s rule.

The Venezuela operation also sparked regional backlash. Colombian President Gustavo Petro condemned the intervention, prompting Trump to threaten similar action against Colombia. This escalatory dynamic – where decisive action in one country generates new confrontations with neighbors – illustrates how small wars proliferate. What begins as a focused operation against narco-terrorism expands into broader regional contestation, exactly the pattern this analysis predicts will characterize the coming decade.

The Greenland Crisis: Hemispheric Security and Alliance Stress

Parallel to Venezuela, January 2026 witnessed escalating U.S. pressure on Greenland. Trump’s demands for control over the Danish territory – framed as essential for Arctic security, mineral access, and the Golden Dome missile defense system – triggered what observers termed a “crisis” in U.S.-European relations. The president initially refused to rule out military force, threatened 25% tariffs on European goods, and questioned Denmark’s legal rights to the territory.

The episode illuminated several aspects of the emerging strategic environment. First, it demonstrated the National Defense Strategy’s prioritization of “key terrain” throughout the Western Hemisphere, defined expansively to include the Arctic. The strategy states: “We will secure Key Terrain in the Western Hemisphere… We will provide the President with credible options to guarantee U.S. military and commercial access to key terrain from the Arctic to South America, especially Greenland, the Gulf of America, and the Panama Canal.”

Second, the Greenland confrontation revealed how strategic restraint in one area – Europe’s conventional defense – can create leverage opportunities in another (Arctic control). By signaling that European allies must assume primary responsibility for deterring Russia, the United States reduced its own dependency on European goodwill, enabling more aggressive pursuit of Greenland access. As one NATO official noted, Trump’s approach “damaged the US standing in the world and how allies see the US in the long term,” yet ultimately produced a “framework deal” that may give the United States expanded military access.

Third, the episode demonstrates gray-zone tactics applied by the United States itself. Rather than invade or purchase Greenland outright, the Trump administration employed what Danish intelligence characterized as “covert marketing campaigns,” influence operations, and legal maneuvering. American influencers distributed money in Nuuk, the capital. The appointment of special envoys, public pressure campaigns, and threatened tariffs all fall below the threshold of armed conflict yet aim to reshape political outcomes. Denmark responded by summoning the U.S. ambassador, increasing military presence in Greenland, and coordinating with Germany, Sweden, and Norway to demonstrate resolve.

The “framework deal” announced at Davos on January 21 – following Trump’s meeting with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte – illustrates how limited conflicts resolve. Trump backed off military threats and tariffs while securing vague commitments about expanded U.S. military access, Golden Dome deployment, and mineral rights. Denmark maintained sovereignty but likely accepted greater U.S. presence. Both sides claimed victory, the crisis de-escalated, and the new status quo expanded U.S. strategic position without war. This is precisely the type of outcome small wars and gray-zone operations aim to achieve: incremental advantage without escalation.

Iran: The Test Case for Gray-Zone Reconstitution

Iran’s response to the June 2025 U.S.-Israeli strikes on its nuclear program provides the clearest example of how adversaries exploit the space between restraint and confrontation. Operation Midnight Hammer, which the National Defense Strategy celebrates as proof that “no other military in the world could have executed an operation of such scale, complexity, and consequence,” successfully destroyed Iran’s enrichment capabilities and killed nuclear scientists. Trump declared Iran’s nuclear program “effectively buried.”

Yet by January 2026, satellite imagery confirmed Iran was actively reconstituting capabilities at multiple sites. At the Taleghan 2 facility, Iran reconstructed a large cylindrical chamber used for nuclear weapons experiments. At Natanz, Tehran erected privacy covers to assess whether highly enriched uranium survived the strikes. At Esfahan, workers cleared debris and fortified tunnel entrances. At Pickaxe Mountain, Iran continued construction of a deeply buried facility not targeted in the original strikes.

This reconstitution effort demonstrates several principles about modern limited conflict. First, even overwhelming tactical success – destroying Iran’s nuclear program – does not prevent strategic reconstitution. Second, adversaries exploit ambiguity about what constitutes “rebuilding” to complicate response options. Is clearing debris an act of aggression? What about fortifying entrances or conducting assessments? Third, reconstitution activities fall below the threshold for major military response yet cumulatively shift strategic balances.

Iran’s approach also illustrates the simultaneity problem that gray-zone competition creates. While reconstituting its nuclear program, Iran faces massive domestic protests –with hundreds killed and thousands detained – threats of U.S. military intervention if protests are suppressed violently, and warnings from both Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu against missile program reconstitution. Tehran must manage multiple crises simultaneously, exactly as the United States must manage Venezuela, Greenland, Ukraine, and Iran concurrently.

The Trump administration’s response reveals both strengths and limitations of the new strategic approach. On one hand, repeated threats to strike Iran if nuclear work resumes establish a clear red line. Trump’s January 2 warning that the U.S. is “locked and loaded and ready to go” if Iran “violently kills peaceful protesters” demonstrates willingness to link internal repression to external consequences. On the other hand, the administration has ruled out negotiations while repression continues, eliminating the diplomatic track. And as critics note, supporting Iran’s protesters while pursuing regime change risks empowering the very coercive apparatus that enabled repression in the first place – a dynamic similar to Venezuela’s uncertain transition.

Ukraine: Trilateral Talks and the European Burden-Sharing Test

The first trilateral talks between the United States, Ukraine, and Russia – held January 23 and 24, 2026, in Abu Dhabi – represent the most consequential diplomatic development in the nearly four-year war. Following Trump’s meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Davos and his envoys’ marathon session with Vladimir Putin in Moscow, the technical-level talks tackled the core territorial question: Russian control of the Donbas.

The Ukraine negotiations illuminate how the burden-sharing logic of the National Defense Strategy operates in practice. The NDS states explicitly: “The war in Ukraine must end. However, as Trump has said, this is Europe’s responsibility first and foremost. Securing and sustaining peace will therefore require leadership and commitment from our NATO allies.” European allies are expected to take “primary responsibility for Europe’s conventional defense with critical but more limited U.S. support.”

This framework creates both opportunities and risks. The opportunity is sustainable long-term deterrence: if Europe develops the capability to deter Russia independently, the United States can focus resources on China and homeland defense. European NATO’s combined GDP dwarfs Russia’s, and the 5% of GDP defense spending commitment agreed at the Hague Summit would generate substantial military power. The risk is a transition period during which Russia exploits allied under-preparation through hybrid operations, territorial fait accompli, and political coercion.

The Ukraine talks also reveal how small wars and limited conflicts define modern great power competition. Rather than directly confronting NATO, Russia invaded a non-member state, carved out separatist regions, and framed its actions as limited aims. Rather than full-scale invasion of Western Europe, Russia employs cyber operations, infrastructure sabotage, political interference, and paramilitary Wagner deployments across Africa. These methods allow Russia to reshape regional orders without triggering Article 5, exactly the pattern this analysis identifies as characteristic of strategic restraint eras.

At Davos, Zelenskyy delivered a searing critique that encapsulates the strategic dilemma: “Instead of taking the lead in defending freedom worldwide, especially when America’s focus shifts elsewhere, Europe looks lost trying to convince the U.S. president to change.” He continued: “President Trump loves who he is, and he says he loves Europe, but he will not listen to this kind of Europe.” The message was clear: European allies must develop independent strategic capability or accept diminished influence. The question is whether they can build that capability faster than adversaries can exploit the transition gap.

The Davos Address: Assertiveness and the New Strategic Framework

Trump’s January 21 speech at the World Economic Forum synthesized the strategic themes driving U.S. policy. The hour-long address oscillated between triumphalism about American power and criticism of allies who have “screwed us for 30 years.” Trump declared “The USA is the economic engine of the planet” and reminded Europeans “without us, right now you’d all be speaking German and a little Japanese, perhaps.”

On Greenland, Trump insisted “no nation or group of nations is in any position to be able to secure Greenland other than the United States” but backed off military threats, stating “I won’t use force.” On Ukraine, he emphasized territorial pragmatism: Russia is “a great power” while “Ukraine is not” and “they may lose the Donbas, but they’ll have peace.” On NATO, he reiterated that the alliance “treats the United States very unfairly” and demanded the 5% GDP defense spending.

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney delivered perhaps the most significant allied response, arguing for what he called middle power unity: “We are in the midst of a rupture, not a transition. The middle powers must act together, because if we’re not at the table, we’re on the menu.” This framing – smaller powers banding together to resist superpower coercion – represents exactly the type of alliance reconfiguration that accompanies major strategic shifts.

The Davos gathering also saw Trump launch his “Board of Peace” for Gaza, demanding $1 billion contributions from permanent members and threatening exclusion for non-compliance. The initiative – mixing public diplomacy, economic coercion, and alliance management – typifies the transactional approach that defines the new strategic era.

The National Defense Strategy’s Gray-Zone Gap

The 2026 National Defense Strategy succeeds in articulating a coherent vision for major war deterrence while largely ignoring the gray-zone competition that recent events demonstrate is intensifying. The strategy’s four lines of effort – defend the homeland, deter China, increase burden-sharing, and supercharge the defense industrial base – are logical and necessary. However, the document contains virtually no discussion of hybrid warfare, limited conflicts below conventional war, or response frameworks for ambiguous aggression.

This gap is particularly striking given the strategy’s own description of adversary behavior. On Russia, the NDS acknowledges Moscow “possesses…undersea, space, and cyber capabilities that it could employ against the U.S. Homeland.” On China, the strategy notes Beijing’s “historic military buildup” but focuses almost exclusively on conventional denial defense along the First Island Chain. On Iran, the document celebrates degrading the nuclear program but says little about proxy networks, maritime harassment, or reconstitution activities.

What the strategy lacks is guidance for the scenarios most likely to unfold:

• Russian hybrid operations in Eastern Europe during the transition to European-led defense. If Russia conducts cyberattacks against Baltic states, employs paramilitary Wagner forces in Moldova, or sabotages infrastructure in Poland, what is the U.S. response? The NDS implies these are now European problems, but provides no framework for managing escalation if European responses prove inadequate.
• Chinese incremental coercion in the Indo-Pacific. If Beijing imposes a maritime blockade on Taiwan without firing a shot, seizes undefended Philippine-claimed features in the South China Sea, or uses cyber operations to disrupt Taiwanese elections, what constitutes an adequate U.S. response? The focus on denial defense may deter invasion but offers little guidance for coercion short of armed attack.
• Iranian proxy operations and reconstitution. As demonstrated by January 2026 events, degrading Iran’s nuclear program through kinetic strikes does not prevent reconstitution. The strategy celebrates past operations but provides no framework for managing the months-long process of rebuilding that is now underway. Similarly, Iran’s proxy networks – Hezbollah, Hamas, Houthi militias – operate in the gray zone between terrorism and state-sponsored warfare.
• Simultaneous small wars across theaters. The National Defense Strategy addresses the “simultaneity problem” entirely in terms of major conventional conflicts. But what if the United States faces Russian hybrid operations in Eastern Europe, Chinese salami-slicing in the South China Sea, Iranian reconstitution and proxy attacks, and Venezuelan instability simultaneously? None requires major U.S. military intervention individually, but collectively they could reshape regional balances while America focuses on China and homeland defense.

Recent events suggest this simultaneous gray-zone competition is not hypothetical but current reality. Within three weeks of January 2026, the United States conducted operations in Venezuela, pressured Denmark over Greenland, threatened Iran over protests and reconstitution, and facilitated Ukraine talks – all while maintaining focus on China. None of these situations involved major conventional warfare, yet each required high-level attention, resource commitment, and strategic risk calculation.

Strategic Implications and Recommendations

The convergence of strategic restraint – as outlined in the NSS and NDS – and assertive limited operations – as demonstrated in Venezuela and elsewhere – creates a distinctive operating environment. The implications extend across three time horizons:

Near-Term (2026-2027)

The immediate challenge is managing the gap between strategic announcement and allied capability development. When the United States signals that Europe must lead its own defense, Russia has months or years to exploit European under-preparation through hybrid operations. When the United States demands 5% GDP defense spending, allies require years to build the necessary forces. During this transition period, adversaries will test boundaries through:

• Probing operations: Small-scale hybrid attacks designed to assess U.S. response thresholds
• Political coercion: Using economic leverage, energy supplies, and disinformation to reshape allied political alignments
• Incremental advantage: Seizing small territorial gains or establishing gray-zone control over disputed areas
• Reconstitution activities: Rebuilding capabilities degraded by previous U.S. or allied operations

The Venezuela operation demonstrates one approach: decisive unilateral action against clear threats. However, not all gray-zone challenges permit such clarity. Iranian nuclear reconstitution, Russian Wagner deployments in Africa, and Chinese incremental advances each require more nuanced responses.

Recommendation: Develop explicit response frameworks for gray-zone aggression, including pre-planned options, delegation of authority for time-sensitive responses, and criteria for escalation. The absence of such frameworks invites paralysis when adversaries conduct ambiguous operations.

Medium-Term (2028-2030)

The critical question is whether allied burden-sharing succeeds faster than adversaries exploit the transition. European NATO must develop not just conventional forces but integrated hybrid defense capabilities. South Korea must assume primary responsibility for deterring North Korea. Middle Eastern partners must lead against Iran. If this burden-sharing succeeds, the result is a more sustainable global posture. If it fails, the United States faces strategic collapse across multiple theaters.

Success requires more than military capability. It demands:

• Political cohesion: Allies must maintain domestic support for defense spending increases and strategic autonomy
• Operational integration: NATO must develop the command structures, intelligence sharing, and joint planning to operate without U.S. leadership
• Industrial capacity: European and Asian partners must build defense industrial bases capable of sustained production
• Credible deterrence: Allied forces must convince adversaries that aggression will be met with effective resistance, even without U.S. participation

Recommendation: Establish measurable milestones for allied capability development with clear timelines. If allies fail to meet these milestones, the United States must either adjust its strategy or accept greater regional risk.

Long-Term (2030-2035)

If the strategic transition succeeds, the result is a multipolar world where regional powers manage their own security with selective U.S. support. If it fails, the decade will be defined by exactly what this analysis predicts: a proliferation of small wars, accumulated territorial changes, eroded U.S. credibility, and potential major power conflict emerging from unresolved gray-zone competition.

The historical parallel is instructive. During the early Cold War, American attempts to avoid nuclear confrontation led to limited wars in Korea, proxy conflicts in Latin America, and subversion campaigns across Asia and Africa. Each conflict remained “small” in the sense that it avoided direct U.S.-Soviet combat. Collectively, they shaped the global balance of power for decades. Today’s gray-zone competition mirrors that pattern with updated tools: cyber operations replace covert action, disinformation replaces propaganda, economic coercion replaces aid conditions.

Recommendation: Build enduring institutions for managing gray-zone competition. This includes attribution capabilities across all domains, rapid response forces trained for ambiguous scenarios, allied coordination mechanisms for hybrid defense, and industrial capacity to sustain long-term competition below the threshold of major war.

Conclusion: Preparing for the World We Face

The 2026 National Defense Strategy represents a necessary recalibration of American strategy toward homeland defense, China deterrence, and allied burden-sharing. The opening weeks of 2026 demonstrate both the opportunities and challenges inherent in this transition. Operation Absolute Resolve proved U.S. capability for decisive limited action. The Greenland framework showed how pressure below war can achieve strategic objectives. Iran’s reconstitution revealed how adversaries exploit the gap between operations and enduring change. The Ukraine talks illustrated the burden-sharing logic in practice.

What these events collectively demonstrate is that strategic restraint – however necessary – invites gray-zone competition. When the United States signals it will not police the international system alone, competitors do not simply accept a new equilibrium. They probe, coerce, and exploit the space between American commitments and capabilities. The result is not the absence of conflict but its proliferation in limited, ambiguous forms.

The choice is not between preparing for major wars or small wars. The National Defense Strategy rightly prioritizes deterring major conflicts. The question is whether the United States will simultaneously prepare for the small wars that historically accompany restraint. History offers an uncomfortable lesson: great powers that seek to avoid large wars through strategic retrenchment often find themselves mired in a series of smaller ones. From the limited conflicts of the early Cold War to today’s hybrid campaigns, adversaries consistently exploit the perceived unwillingness to escalate.

The next National Military Strategy, combatant command plans, and force development initiatives must address what the National Defense Strategy omits: concrete frameworks for gray-zone competition, hybrid warfare, and limited conflicts. Without such frameworks, the United States risks achieving restraint in form while suffering erosion in substance – winning the wars we prepare for while losing the conflicts we face.

The strategic truth remains: deterring small wars requires different capabilities than deterring large ones. Attribution mechanisms, rapid decision-making, multi-domain integration, allied coordination for hybrid threats, and response options across the spectrum of conflict – these are the tools needed for the world we face. The question is whether the United States will build them before the proliferation of small wars reshapes the global balance of power.

President Trump’s approach – decisive limited operations, aggressive burden-shifting, transactional alliances, and willingness to exploit gray-zone tactics – represents one answer to this challenge. Whether that approach proves sufficient depends on whether competitors are deterred by American assertiveness or emboldened by the spaces American restraint creates. The events of January 2026 suggest both dynamics are at work simultaneously. The decade ahead will reveal which proves dominant.