Squadron Officer School (SOS) 26D – A03 Practice Test

Competition below armed conflict focuses on non-kinetic tools and strategies adversaries use to contest objectives without engaging in full-scale war. The example listed—cyber attacks, disinformation, economic pressure, coercion, and influence operations—fits this idea perfectly. These methods are designed to shape outcomes, degrade capabilities, or influence decision-makers while staying under the threshold of open hostilities. They can be sustained, multidimensional, and harder to attribute, which makes them well-suited for operating in the gray zone between peace and war. Direct invasion and open warfare involve actual fighting and crossing into armed conflict, so they do not illustrate competition below that threshold. Nuclear threats, while coercive and highly dangerous, represent extreme escalation and potential move toward war, not the restrained, below-threshold competition described here. Thus, the listed cyber, disinformation, economic, coercive, and influence tools are the archetype of competition below armed conflict.