Description
The question of how states operate in the so-called Grey Zone between war and peace has captured the recent attention of scholars and policymakers alike. (Counter-)disinformation, spanning degrees of (im)plausible deniability, constitutes a core feature in its own right and shapes how we understand other Grey Zone activities. A paradox exists here whereby, despite playing up the novelty of the threat, political leaders have consistently adopted Cold War analogies, especially with regards to propaganda and information operations. This paper examines the role of such analogies in justifying proposed security responses, and the impact they have had. Recent research has challenged the supposed novelty of today’s threat but has also highlighted how states historically managed knowledge of such capabilities carefully in order to prevent exaggeration, conspiracism, and analogy-making. Drawing on recent archival releases and analysis of UK press coverage of the War in Ukraine, this paper demonstrates how foreign policymakers have alluded to a mythologisation of past activity. It considers, just as their predecessors warned, the impact this has had on public misperceptions of current capabilities. This paper has implications for thinking about how the past can inform the present - and vice versa.
