Cognitive Warfare (CW)
Cognitive Warfare (CW)
Cognitive Warfare (CW)
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Cognitive Warfare (CW) is any military activities which specifically focus on manipulating
perceptions, beliefs, and decision-making processes to alter cognitive brain function.[1][2][3] This
has been referred to by NATO CMDR. Paul Grostad as “Hacking the OODA Loop.” [4] While
cognitive warfare is a form of PSYOP that utilize propaganda, disinformation, etc., it distinguishes
itself from other information related activities by its objectives — “its goal is not what individuals
think, but rather, the way they think.”[5] Cognitive Warfare refers to the way that human thought,
reasoning, sense-making, decision-making, and behaviour may be engineered through not only the
manipulation of information, but also by the A.I./ML network of algorithms which push
information through the internet.[1][2][3][5] Other methods of Cognitive Warfare include the
targeted use of inaudible sound waves and microwaves to incapacitate enemy forces by disrupting
the neurological functions of human targets without causing visible injury.[4][6][7] According to
the U.S. National Institute of Health, Infrasound’s effect on the human inner ear includes “vertigo,
imbalance, intolerable sensations, incapacitation, disorientation, nausea, vomiting, and bowel
spasm; and resonances in inner organs, such as the heart.” [6][7] Infrasound distinguishes itself
from other means of Cognitive Warfare by targeting individuals directly rather than employ
methods that rely on other media for impact — a subcategory of Cognitive Warfare weaponry that
has unofficially been called ‘neurostrike weapons.’
When waged online, Cognitive Warfare starts with data.[1][2] When data is matched with
personally identifiable information (PII), A.I. predictive models can determine your private traits
and attributes such as personality and behavioural vulnerabilities. [1][2][10] Using this
psychological and psychographic profile, an influence campaign is created and adjusted in real
time by A.I. ML models until the desired cognitive and behaviour effects on the individual and/or
population are achieved.[1][2][5][11]
Red & Green indicators act as a “traffic light system” until the desired effects are achieved
on cognition and behaviour during Strategic Communications campaigns to Counter
Violent Extremism (CVE) & Counterinsurgeny (COIN)
These influence campaigns used in cognitive warfare and cognitive operations are executed
through the private influence industry known as Strategic Communications (StratCom).[1][2][12]
[13][37] Strategic Communications is utilized in multiple sectors as a method of advertising and
public relations.[1][2] So while Cognitive Warfare refers to these activities when used in military
settings, cognitive operations are not exclusive to the military ward.[1][2][5] There are multiple
methods used to achieve the desired affects in cognitive brain function through strategic
communications — two of the most notable being microtargeting and attitudinal inoculation.[1][2]
[5][14][37]
The effects of cognitive warfare & cognitive operations online are achieved through attitudinal
inoculation by using information for a conflicting purpose.[5][14] By using weak counterarguments
in the support of a narrative, the receiver seeks out identity supporting information that further
strengthens their threatened position — thus building psychological perseverance mechanisms
such as confirmation bias.[1][2][5] The held opinion, attitude, interpretation of events, etc. then
becomes resistant to a stronger attack (hence the medical terminology referring to a vaccine).[1]
[2][5] This methodology significantly increases the resilience of audiences and enables them to
withstand any attempts from others to change their opinions, decisions, interpretation of events,
etc.[1][2][3][5][14][15]
Microtargeting is a suggestive recommender algorithm (SeRA).[1][2] It’s similar to native
algorithms on websites that promote related content and suggested media based on not only
what you like, but also what people like who are similar to you. In the case of microtargeting,
rather than a user being provided content based on what a website’s algorithms predict that they
will like, they’re instead microtargeted messages from the website’s sponsors. Websites
essentially give this capability to the highest bidder as an advertising technique. But not all
‘sponsored’ material are labeled as such, and not all strategic communications campaigns are
designed to look like advertisements (primarily in political and military StratComs).[1][2][5]
When an audience is only microtargeted information that they are most likely to resonate with,
they are algorithmically segmented in to what’s known as online echochambers which don’t allow
the group to see a conflicting counterbalance of content.[14]
Ms. Anna Vladimirova-Kryukova is an associate of NATO StratCom and Data Protection Officer at
COBALT Latvia. When speaking at the 2019 Riga StratCom Dialog on strategic communications in
cognitive warfare settings, she asserts, “microtargeting really exists and it’s micro-effects also
exist. And yes it can actually impact you and the whole society.”[35] Anna continues at this NATO
conference, “in the case of microtargeting we really can manipulate the minds of people. And this
can lead to very serious results and very serious problems to wars and very serious conflicts,
biases and can also impact lives and can lead to losing lives. Or it can endanger lives. And
unfortunately I had such cases in my practice so its really happening.”[35]
And because these tactics are completely clandestine, this has blurred the threshold in terms of
reacting to these threats.[5][11] While Cognitive Warfare and Cognitive Operations may be
conducted online using the aforementioned methods, Cognitive Warfare can also be waged
through the use of sound weapons. China’s PLA has now officially incorporated the use of sound
weapons in to its arsenal of Cognitive Warfare weaponry.[6][7] Like the aforementioned methods
of Cognitive Warfare, sound weapons also incapacitate enemy forces by disrupting the
neurological functions of human targets without causing visible injury.[6][7] This has been referred
to as “Infrasound.”[6][7] Infrasound distinguishes itself from other means of Cognitive Warfare by
targeting individuals directly rather than employ methods that rely on other media for impact — a
subcategory of Cognitive Warfare weaponry that has unofficially been called ‘neurostrike
weapons.’ The South China Morning Post, reporting on the weapon, says it has no moving parts
— “Professor Xie Xiujuan, lead scientist on the project, said the device was powered by a tube-
shape vessel containing an inert gas. [7] When heated, the gas particles vibrate and a deep,
monotonous sound is emitted.” The Chinese scientists assert that the weapon, developed by the
Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Technical Institute of Physics and Chemistry, uses “focused waves of
low frequency sound” to cause “extreme discomfort, with vibrations in the eardrums, eyeballs,
stomach, liver, and brain.”[7] According to the U.S. National Institute of Health, frequencies must
be <20 Hz with exposures at 90 dB and higher — with the effects of Infrasound being achieved
within minutes.[6]
Objectives of CW & Downstream Effects
Objectives of Cognitive Warfare are to shape/control and enemy’s cognitive thinking and decision-
making; to manipulate and degrade a nation’s values, emotions, national spirit, cultural traditions,
historical beliefs, political will; to achieve adversarial strategic geopolitical objectives without
fighting; to influence human/societal reasoning, thinking, emotions, et. al. aligned with specific
objectives; and degrade a populations trust in their institutions.[3] In doing so, this allows for the
weakening/disruption of military, political & societal cohesion; and undermining/threatening of
democracy.[3] CW is also used to leverage extremist groups to create chaos, political violence, and
crisis.[5] Through CW, cultural genocide and be facilitated by targeting cognitive biases to create
hate and generate racism.[3]Cognitive warfare has also been used by authoritarian societies to
restructure society and groom populations to accept “continuous surveillance.”[3] Through
Cognitive Warfare, this allows these authoritarian societies to “remove individuals/outliers who
resist and insist on Freedom of Speech, Independent Thinking, etc.”[3] Some of the harmful effects
of cognitive warfare can be militated with cognitive security — cognitive resilience through
educational training in areas such as critical thinking, media literacy, awareness of these
capabilities, and other relevant topics.[1][2][3]
Traditionally, there are five domains of war where military actions are taken — Air, Land, Sea,
Space, and Cyberspace. These are spaces where warfare is traditionally waged. Actions taken in
these domains aim to achieve affects in one or more of the three dimensions of war — The human
dimension, the physical dimension, and the information dimension. But because “the brain is and
will be the 21st century battlescape ,”[9] western scholars and defense circles are now torn
between the addition of a new domain; some calling it the ‘cognitive domain,’ and others the
‘human domain.’ The Chinese military has made their own determination, deciding on the
cognitive domain with all activities therein called ‘cognitive domain operations (CDO)’.[36]
Cognitive warfare weaponry has multiple agnostic applications including commercial, political and
covert IW and CW military operations.[1][2][3][14][37] Gary Bonick JR. was the first to publish the
DARPA origins of this weaponry, exactly how it is deployed, and its impacts on mental health &
democracy.[1][2][37] DARPA began research and development on “sentiment detection and
opinion mining” for “influence operations” using automated & semi-automated systems on July
11, 2010, in a program called ‘Social Media in Strategic Communications (SMISC).[12][37]
Cognitive Warfare and Cognitive Operations are waged through the influence industry known as
Strategic Communications (StratCom).[1][2][12][37] The scope of DARPA’s SMISC program was to
create automated/semi-automated systems with regard to “influence operations” for the
purposes of “inducing identities” (engineering behaviour through identity politics), modeling these
“emergent communities,” creating “bots in social media”, “automated content generation”,
“sentiment detection and opinion mining”, “crowd sourcing,” and “narrative structure analysis,”
etc.[12][37] The Directorate of the U.S. National Science Foundation, Erwin Gianchandani, who has
published extensively and presented at numerous international conferences on the subject of
computational systems modeling of biological networks, has called this DARPA program “Warfare
from Social Media.”[13][37][38][39]
Just after the start of this SMISC program, DARPA, the Intelligence community, and Boeing
Phantom Works, began funding research at the University of Cambridge also for sentiment
detection and opinion mining.[40][41][42][43] This research began the breakthrough of
determining private traits and attributes from digital records of human behaviour.[10] This
allowed DARPAs SMISC platform the capability to target based on metrics of mental health gauged
by a Big 5 OCEAN score. An OCEAN score is a metric used by clinicians to diagnose personality and
behavioural disorders and/or vulnerabilities.
After the military funded technology was built, Cambridge University opened up a for-profit spin-
off of its Psychometrics Center called ‘Cambridge Personality Research.’ This wing of the University
offered something called “Preference” to political clients.[44] For a fee, this wing of the University
would leverage people’s data that it had gathered for academic purposes from Facebook, Twitter,
etc. and target political audiences based on metrics of mental health; amongst other categorical
variables.[44][45][46]
Other than the military-industrial complex, Facebook also partnered on this early cognitive
research.[47] And it was Facebook that ended up with the patent for it.[48]
The technology inevitably found its way from this milieu at Cambridge University to the premier
NATO military contractor known as SCL Group.[49][50][51] This contractor amalgamated this
OCEAN modeling it with its own version of SMISC weapon which it called the ‘Ripon Platform.’ [49]
[50][51][52][15] Until 2015, there was only one private military contractor in the world licensed to
deploy weapons-grade communications tactics — SCL Group.[15][54]
It was deemed “weapons grade communications tactics” and export controlled by the British
government.[15][54] The founder and owner of this premier NATO military contractor also
founded and owned the U.K. based Influence Advisory Council, advising on influence standards
and reviewing best practices of allied governments.[55][56][57] In 2015, the U.K. government
lifted the export designation — just before this company then bypassed U.S. election laws to
deploy these weapons-grade tactics on behalf of the Trump campaign in the 2016 U.S. presidential
election through a front facing shell company known as Cambridge Analytica.[54][58][59][60][61]
[62][63][64] During this 2016 presidential campaign, this premier NATO contractor targeted those
who scored highly neurotic on their OCEAN profiles — specifically targeting paranoid minded
individuals having paranoid ideations with fear-based information and disinformation.[14][54][65]
[66] A whistleblower from the company named Christopher Wylie came forward and explained on
multiple occasions why this demographic was being targeted with these cognitive warfare tactics
— “with the view that these are the people that Steve Bannon would be able to use in order to
spark an insurgency in the United States.”[67][68] Less than two years after his statements, the
United States saw what was determined to be an insurrection at the U.S. capital building in
Washington D.C., a trait of an insurgency.
During the presidential transition period just weeks after the 2016 U.S. presidential election,
Obama’s State Department signed a contract with this same military contractor to adopt its
strategies for the Global Engagement Center’s (GEC) to counter violent extremism. According to a
December 2016 no-bid contract for the DoS GEC, the State Department says that “In sum. After six
years of research and countless demonstrations by companies wishing to sell their services, the
GEC is not aware of any companies that approach the sophistication and effectiveness of SCL in
designing data-driven influence campaigns that demonstrably work.”[69][70]
The front facing shell company was brought to the attention of Congress, but the single hearing
they had on the matter consisted of data privacy protection rather than what was being done with
the data.[41] Congress was led to believe the military technology used in cognitive operations was
snake-oil, despite the aforementioned DoS comments and its premier status in the field of
Strategic Communications.[41] Because the front facing shell company of SCL Group went defunct
just prior to the hearing, U.S. Congress felt that no further action should be taken to investigate
the matter further — despite the U.K. Parliament determining: