Grey zone conflict / hybrid warfare: How does it relate to negotiation and conflict management, throughout the West?

Project Seshat was a multinational effort to study and respond to the rising threats of “hybrid warfare” or “grey zone conflict” now targeting all democracies. ​The study group included approximately fifty conflict management and security experts from many walks of life, and focused particularly on how to defend entities other than national governments: corporations, universities, hospitals, NGOs, think-tanks, municipalities and more. The project’s primary investigation phase ran from 2019-2023; a further two years were needed for preparation of the project’s final product, the world’s first teaching casebook on hybrid warfare (see below.) During that time the group concluded that it was time to create a more sustainable successor. The result was the Council on Countering Hybrid Warfare, now under way with New York’s Cardozo Law School as the institutional host. The Council is at work on a successor volume of teaching tools. 

Chris Honeyman served as Project Seshat’s Principal Investigator throughout; chaired its steering committee; and provided initial advice on the design of Project Seshat’s institutional successor.

New: Chris Honeyman is now leading a “spinoff” effort to develop new tools for combating disinformation, with the assistance of a small group of expert advisors. The details are not yet public.

Major publications

New in 2026: Hybrid Warfare: A Collection of Scenarios, edited by Adrian Borbély. This is the world’s first teaching casebook on hybrid warfare. It is based in test cases developed by five interdisciplinary Project Seshat teams. To avoid any cost barriers to its use, publisher DRI Press agreed with the organizers to make the PDF version of the book entirely free for anyone to use (https://open.mitchellhamline.edu/dri_press/15/). The print edition, similarly, is priced at not much more than the printing costs, in any country where Amazon does business (US link, https://tinyurl.com/56xsdzs6)

Introduction: Borbély, A. and Honeyman, C. 2026. Midnight in a Kaleidoscope: Conflict Management and Hybrid Warfare. Introduction to Hybrid Warfare – A Collection of Scenarios, edited by Adrian Borbély. In PDF at Borbely & Honeyman 2026

2025: “A New Management System, for a New Type of Conflict? Singapore’s Possible Role in Managing Grey Zone Conflict in International Commerce.” This article, by Chris Honeyman and Rachel Tan, was published in the July 2025 issue of Australia’s Dispute Resolution Review. In PDF at Honeyman & Tan 2025

Negotiation Strategies for War by Other Means.