In recent years an unfamiliar form of extreme international competition has become more evident. Different observers have devised different names for it, among which the one that comes closest to traditional negotiation studies is grey zone conflict. The most common term, however, is hybrid warfare. Some of its aspects are by now well known, such as interference in elections, or the arrival in 2014 of heavily armed but unidentified "little green men" on the disputed Ukrainian border. In 2021 the most widely discussed element was the rise of ransomware. Since February, 2022 Russia's fresh invasion of Ukraine and the ensuing open warfare have become a focus of attention worldwide; but hybrid attacks by a variety of actors are still under way. They are simply less conspicuous by comparison.
Less conspicuous still has been a whole array of gambits that take place in the private sector. Many of these appear to operate by perverting what to Western parties may look like ordinary commercial negotiations. There is increasing evidence that these attacks have become widespread, and also that Western intelligence, police, military and other security agencies are not well structured to respond to such private sector actions in any strategic or coherent way. Furthermore, grey zone conflict / hybrid warfare campaigns appear to change tactics frequently, and to coordinate direct government actions with activity by private and nonprofit entities, as well as by transnational organized crime.
At the same time, the West cannot simply treat countries typically cited in this context as pure competitors, because there are also strong shared interests that require cooperation on other matters (e.g. climate change.) Negotiation experts' contemporaneous studies during the Cold War have provided a useful precedent, in their analyses of how the strongly competitive relationship between the U.S. and the Soviet Union could be, and was, kept within bounds even at the height of the tensions.
Project Seshat is a multinational effort to study and respond to this situation using a negotiation / conflict management perspective. Its central focus is on dealings of all kinds between Western firms (and nonprofits and local and regional government) and ostensibly private entities that may be effectively controlled by a hostile government. Yet the coordination of gambits and entities that is characteristic of hybrid warfare mandates paying at least some attention to the broader scope of related activity.
The ultimate object of the project is mitigation of harm. The first priority, however, has been to build up a better picture than any now available of the variety, scope and frequency of these attacks. To that end, the project recruited approximately forty negotiation experts, with a variety of scholarly and practical backgrounds in business, law, sociology, law enforcement and a deliberately wide array of other fields. In parallel, the project has built up a smaller but equally experienced selection of professionals with deep intelligence, military, cyber, police and other security-related expertise. The group's public output is tracked at Publications.
Less conspicuous still has been a whole array of gambits that take place in the private sector. Many of these appear to operate by perverting what to Western parties may look like ordinary commercial negotiations. There is increasing evidence that these attacks have become widespread, and also that Western intelligence, police, military and other security agencies are not well structured to respond to such private sector actions in any strategic or coherent way. Furthermore, grey zone conflict / hybrid warfare campaigns appear to change tactics frequently, and to coordinate direct government actions with activity by private and nonprofit entities, as well as by transnational organized crime.
At the same time, the West cannot simply treat countries typically cited in this context as pure competitors, because there are also strong shared interests that require cooperation on other matters (e.g. climate change.) Negotiation experts' contemporaneous studies during the Cold War have provided a useful precedent, in their analyses of how the strongly competitive relationship between the U.S. and the Soviet Union could be, and was, kept within bounds even at the height of the tensions.
Project Seshat is a multinational effort to study and respond to this situation using a negotiation / conflict management perspective. Its central focus is on dealings of all kinds between Western firms (and nonprofits and local and regional government) and ostensibly private entities that may be effectively controlled by a hostile government. Yet the coordination of gambits and entities that is characteristic of hybrid warfare mandates paying at least some attention to the broader scope of related activity.
The ultimate object of the project is mitigation of harm. The first priority, however, has been to build up a better picture than any now available of the variety, scope and frequency of these attacks. To that end, the project recruited approximately forty negotiation experts, with a variety of scholarly and practical backgrounds in business, law, sociology, law enforcement and a deliberately wide array of other fields. In parallel, the project has built up a smaller but equally experienced selection of professionals with deep intelligence, military, cyber, police and other security-related expertise. The group's public output is tracked at Publications.