The Most Dangerous Military Strategies Don't Start With an Invasion

Taiwan stopped scrambling jets.

That's the headline China wanted. In March 2021, Taiwan's Ministry of National Defense made a quiet policy change. Instead of sending fighter jets to intercept every Chinese military aircraft entering its airspace, they'd track them from the ground.

The reason was simple: they couldn't afford it anymore.

Chinese air incursions into Taiwan's Air Defense Identification Zone jumped from 380 in 2020 to over 5,700 in 2025. That's a 1,400% increase in five years. Around 9% of Taiwan's defense budget in 2020 went to responding to Chinese sorties. Pilots were exhausted. Jets needed maintenance. Fuel costs were mounting.

So Taiwan raised its threshold. Now they only scramble jets when the threat is significant—more than 30 aircraft at once, or planes crossing the median line of the Taiwan Strait.

That shift is exactly what gray zone warfare is designed to achieve.

You Don't Invade. You Exhaust.

Gray zone warfare operates below the threshold of armed conflict. It's not war, but it's not peace either. The goal isn't to trigger a response—it's to normalize aggression until your opponent stops responding.

China isn't trying to shoot down Taiwanese jets. It's trying to wear down Taiwan's will and resources. Every incursion forces a decision: scramble or don't scramble. Respond or ignore. Each choice has a cost.

If Taiwan scrambles every time, it burns through money, pilots, and public morale. If it doesn't scramble, China's presence becomes routine. The abnormal becomes normal.

The Albis Perception Gap Index scored this story 5.35, with Asia-Pacific outlets framing Chinese incursions as intimidation and sovereignty threats, while US outlets framed them as aggression requiring allied support. China, when covering the story, frames the flights as internal affairs—policing its own territory.

That framing gap matters. It shows how the same military pressure looks different depending on where you're standing.

Making the Abnormal Feel Normal

In 2020, a Chinese military aircraft entering Taiwan's ADIZ was news. In 2025, it's background noise.

That's the point.

The BBC reported in 2023 that "this normalisation may one day serve to mask the first moves of a real attack, making it difficult for Taiwan and the United States to prepare accordingly." When everything looks like a routine incursion, how do you spot the one that isn't?

Taiwan's defense minister warned last week against interpreting recent reductions in Chinese flights as a retreat. Some analysts think Beijing is conserving fuel as oil prices surge due to the Iran war. Others think it's posturing ahead of a Trump-Xi summit.

Either way, the baseline has shifted. What used to be escalation is now routine.

Russia Did This to Ukraine

Russia spent eight years normalizing military pressure on Ukraine before the 2022 invasion.

It started in 2014 with the seizure of Crimea. Then came low-level conflict in the Donbas. Then military buildups on the border. Then exercises. Then more exercises.

By early 2022, the West had seen so many Russian troop buildups near Ukraine that warnings of an invasion were met with skepticism. One more exercise. One more drill.

When the invasion came, it wasn't a bolt from the blue. It was the culmination of eight years of making abnormal military movements feel routine.

The pattern is clear: you don't shock your opponent into submission. You exhaust them into acceptance.

The South China Sea Playbook

China has run this strategy before. In the South China Sea, it's called "salami slicing"—the slow accumulation of small actions, none of which alone justifies war, but which add up to major territorial gains.

China took the Paracel Islands from Vietnam in 1974. Johnson Reef in 1988. Mischief Reef in 1995. Scarborough Shoal in 2012.

Each move was incremental. None triggered armed conflict. But over four decades, China built artificial islands, established military bases, and redrew the map of the South China Sea.

The same strategy is playing out in Taiwan's airspace. Incremental. Relentless. Designed to avoid triggering a red line while steadily moving the goalposts.

The Cost of Staying Alert

Taiwan isn't blind to this. It knows what China is doing. But knowing doesn't make it easier.

If Taiwan scrambles jets for every incursion, it runs out of money and pilots. If it doesn't, China's presence becomes routine. Both options serve Beijing's strategy.

Taiwan's defense budget has grown at nearly 5% per year since 2019. It spent about 2.5% of GDP on defense in 2024. But China's military budget is 7% larger this year than last, and analysts estimate the real number—including "hidden" spending—is far higher.

The resource imbalance is staggering. Taiwan can't outspend China. It can't out-scramble China. It has to choose which fights to take.

That's the genius of gray zone warfare: it forces your opponent to make bad choices.

What Comes Next

China flew 739 aircraft into Taiwan's ADIZ in January and February 2025 alone. Analysts expect 2-3 unplanned military exercises targeting Taiwan this year.

The normalization continues. Each incursion makes the next one less shocking. Each exercise makes the idea of blockades and encirclement more familiar.

The most dangerous military strategies don't announce themselves. They creep. They normalize. They make you wonder if you're overreacting—until it's too late to react at all.

Taiwan raised its response threshold because it had to. China's counting on it.