Cognitive warfare refers to the battle that takes place within the human mind, aimed at attacking, exploiting, degrading, or destroying how an individual or group constructs their reality, mental self-confidence, and trust in processes.
At least, this is how Luis Mariano Giorgi and Márcio Saldanha Walker understand it, and they outline it in a study published in the journal Visión Conjunta, edited by the Joint War School of the Armed Forces of the Argentine Republic, which we will cover in Venezuela Política over several posts.
In this work, the authors analyze how different nations, namely, the United States, China, and Russia, as well as NATO, address this new domain while highlighting their approaches, doctrines, and potential defensive measures. The authors emphasize the importance of research in neurosciences and its dual application in military contexts, concluding that cognitive warfare is in an evolving and competitive stage where the actor that manages to develop a coherent doctrine and concept in this field could gain a decisive advantage. They also question whether cognitive warfare should be considered a sixth domain of operations.
The Brain as a Research Object
They argue that neurosciences and technology are allowing new ways to influence human cognition, while noting that the brain is considered a critical domain in future conflicts. In this sense, the brain’s executive functions, which control decision-making, planning, and problem-solving, are a key target.
Luis Mariano Giorgi and Márcio Saldanha Walker start from the principle that “cognition is the basis of human behavior. It is the center of gravity; and it is a target under constant attack,” referring to a set of studies on the human brain that emerged from the first decade of this 21st century. These studies led the European Union, on one hand, to model and simulate brain function using supercomputers.
Meanwhile, China aims to identify the neural principles of cognition and develop novel means for diagnosing and treating significant brain diseases, as well as technologies for computational brain intelligence; and the United States focuses on exploring the activity and functioning of each neuron with the purpose of developing a complete map of the brain.
The Brain as a Battlefield
Giorgi and Walker cite James Giordano, head of the neuroethics program at Georgetown University, who relates brain research to military applications and asserts that “the brain will be the battlefield of the future.”
Additionally, he notes that other analyses estimate that cognitive warfare will be fought in the battlefield of the human mind and “the cognitive domain should become the sixth domain of operations.”
Let’s clarify that the concept of “the sixth domain of operations” relates to the inclusion of the cognitive domain or human mind as a fundamental area in modern warfare. Thus, it would join the five traditional domains which are land, sea, air, space, and cyberspace. In other words, the sixth domain of operations acknowledges that the human mind is crucial in today’s warfare and seeks to integrate the cognitive dimension into military strategy.
Informational Competition as Strategy
The brain will be the battlefield of the future
The study highlights that informational and technological competition has recently become a constant cognitive strategy for states. They argue that in cognitive warfare, elements of information warfare are present, including operational aspects of psychology and neuroscience that combine for military action.
In cognitive warfare, it is essential to understand how the enemy thinks, how their mind works, how they view the world, and how they develop their conceptual thinking in order to attack, degrade, and destroy the way they construct their reality, their mental self-confidence, and their trust in the processes and approaches necessary for the efficient functioning of groups, societies, or even nations.
In the context of technological military competition, the authors indicate they aim to clarify advancements in neuroscientific research and its application to cognitive warfare. They analyze cognitive processes to know how they work and identify possible threats so that armed forces can act and contain them.