Beyond Blue Water: Gray Zone Lessons from Small Island Nations

Jun 26, 2026 | Ahmed Rasheed and Thomas A. Crowson
View Original

While conventional wisdom suggests small states facing gray zone maritime pressure require external protection or significant force expansion, systematic examination of Seychelles, Mauritius, and the Philippines reveals that resilience depends more on governance, legitimacy, and persistence than firepower. These cases demonstrate six counterintuitive findings: law-enforcement primacy outperforms military responses, littoral waters matter more than distant EEZs, evidence collection functions as operational capability, transparency serves as deterrence, persistence trumps resolution, and partner support must avoid dependency. For US security cooperation, these findings suggest prioritizing institutional capacity building over platform transfers and measuring partner independence rather than equipment delivered, producing more resilient partners at lower cost.