There is, of course, nothing new about using information as a vital instrument of war. But in the past information tended to be a handmaiden to action. Now the informational element appears to be as important as, if not more important than, the physical dimension. Take Russia’s air strikes in Syria. The Kremlin’s official rationale for the military campaign was to combat the Islamic State. But very few of its operations have actually been aimed at ISIS, with many more directed at U.S.-supported rebels fighting Syrian President, and Russian client, Bashar al-Assad. The Kremlin clearly has more in mind than defeating ISIS militarily. Russia has entered the Syrian stage in such a way as to surprise the West and ensure it will play a starring role in any narrative going forward—whether that narrative involves keeping Assad in power or a “global fight against terror.” The Russian military might be small compared to America’s, and the Russian economy may be a mess, but Vladimir Putin has cleverly undermined America’s reputation as a “global policeman” and boosted his stature as the man who is restoring Russia as a Great Global Power.

This is not “soft power” in the classic sense of projecting a positive national image through culture and public relations, but rather a case of using strategic narrative to keep your opponent intimidated, confused, and dismayed—of exploiting ubiquitous information to appear bigger, scarier, and more indispensable than reality would suggest. Russia’s bombing raids in Syria also have the positive side effects (for Moscow) of distracting from the conflict in Ukraine and helping maintain a steady torrent of refugees to Europe, which in turn strengthens right-wing parties in countries such as France and Hungary that peddle anti-refugee fears, are supported by the Kremlin, and advocate dropping Western sanctions against Russia. What matters in the information age is not so much “military escalation dominance”—the Cold War doctrine emphasizing the ability to introduce more arms than the enemy into a conflict. Rather, it’s “narrative escalation dominance”—being able to introduce more startling storylines than your opponent.

In many ways, gray-zone conflicts are the dark flip side of globalization, where transnational media, economic integration, and the free movement of people create not a “global village,” but an environment in which we can all mess with each other in more insidious ways. Globalization also means, however, that states such as China or Russia are unlikely to declare full-on war. Why risk an open conflict they would probably lose when the aim is to preserve all the advantages of “positive” globalization—the global markets and foreign investments—while simultaneously harnessing these dynamics to subvert others.

All this leads to a situation where powers can be fighting each other with one hand and shaking hands with the other: China and the U.S. face off in the South China Sea while strengthening economic ties; Russia and the U.S. circle each other in Ukraine while discussing cooperation in Syria. It also leads to political promiscuity, wherein alliances are short-term and tactical, but prone to fallings-out: Turkey and Russia were best friends forever at the start of 2015, two neo-authoritarian regimes hoping for ever closer energy union; today, after the Turks shot down a Russian fighter jet over Syria, they are enemies, with each country’s leader seeking to bolster his domestic image with breast-beating. These are geopolitical relationships with all the depth of Facebook friendships, likes, and bans.