Michael J. Cheatham, Angelique M. Geyer, Priscella A. Nohle & Jonathan E. Vazquez
The United States is facing unprecedented challenges in the cognitive domain. While democracies struggle to develop frameworks that promote collective understanding, adversaries are employing gray zone tactics—those that never rise to the level of war—as a form of cognitive warfare against the United States and other democratic societies. François du Cluzel, head of innovative projects at the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)’s Allied Command Transformation Innovation Hub, describes the key distinctions of the emerging cognitive domain: warfare is not limited to the military or institutional world. Since the early 1990s, this capability has tended to be applied to the political, economic, cultural, and societal fields.
Any user of modern information technologies is a potential target. It targets the whole of a nation’s human capital.
The use of cognitive warfare to target “a nation’s human capital” highlights a growing threat vector. Cognitive warfare aims to create cognitive-emotional conflict by influencing a target population’s thoughts and values using technical means and information. As a target, human capital is a weak point in a nation’s defense, particularly for nations that are highly connected and based on open systems. The brain’s tendency to accept disinformation exposes a risk that affects a nation’s defense and its broader society. The brain operates on the principle of survival. When individuals interpret inputs as threatening (actual or perceived), the brain’s fear centers activate, executive-function areas cloud, and rational decision cycles are interrupted.3
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