The War for our Minds, Part 3

Cognitive Warfare, the Sixth Domain

In the first part, we explored the propaganda we’re bombarded with regarding the war in Ukraine, and noticed something was off. Where Russia was waging ‘typical’ war propaganda, the pro-Ukrainian side was massive, global, and incredibly sophisticated.

In the second part, we explored who the direct players were in this massive PR war that is being waged, not just in Ukraine and Russia, but also in the West and in the US. We saw a very strong and clear overlap, with people leading the PR firms and lobbyists with links to the governments, intelligence agencies and military of the EU and US, NATO, and to groups tied to Soros and the WEF.

Now, in this third and final part, we will look closer at what exactly is going on.

What is going on, as you will see, goes way beyond a public relations campaign. It goes way beyond propaganda. It is a war for our minds, where we all are made participants and targets, and this war for our minds started well before Putin launched his operations in Ukraine.

But first, we need to take a step back, and look at the military development of ‘cognitive warfare’.

As a starting point, “NATO currently recognizes five warfighting domains: land, sea, air, space, and cyberspace. An increasing amount of literature suggests adding a sixth: the cognitive domain.”

In an official NATO document from 2007, the US signaled reservations to the use of the term ‘information domain’ as used in that document, and clarified: “Doctrinally, the United States only recognizes domains as the geographic bounded areas of air, land, sea, and space.” In 2011, the US added the domain cyberspace (which NATO adopted in 2016).

However, Todd Schmidt pointed out in his article The Missing Domain of War: Achieving Cognitive Overmatch on Tomorrow’s Battlefield: “There is a missing domain, however, and it will be decisive in modern war and the future strategic environment. The cognitive domain of war has been explored and contested for centuries. Chinese strategist and philosopher Sun Tzu believed that wars are won through intelligence, information, and deception; attacking enemies where they are least prepared; and breaking resistance and subduing adversaries indirectly without fighting.” 

And a 2020 NATO research paper stated that the US is currently hard at work to catch up, even if they don’t officially recognize that 6th domain yet:

“Although a number of nations have pursued, and are currently pursuing neuroscientific research and development for military purposes, perhaps the most proactive efforts in this regard have been conducted by the United States Department of Defense; with most notable and rapidly maturing research and development conducted by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA).”

The militarization of the brain is made clear in the military purposes of such neuroscientific techniques and technologies, as the paper explained:

1. Neural systems modelling and human/brain-machine interactive networks in intelligence, training and operational systems;

2. Neuroscientific and neurotechnological approaches to optimising performance and resilience in combat and military support personnel;

3. Direct weaponisation of neuroscience and neurotechnology

But what is cognitive warfare, really?

Lea Kristina Bjørgul, writing for Stratagem, gives in her article Cognitive Warfare and the Use of Force an easy to understand definition: “Cognitive warfare attempts to alter people’s perceptions, which is the fundamental basis for action.” That is it, in a nutshell.

She goes into more detail:

“To understand cognitive warfare, it is useful to start with the concept of cognition, possibly defined as “the mental process of acquiring and comprehending knowledge, which implies the consumption, interpretation and perception of information” (Ottewell, 2020). Consequently, one possible understanding is that the cognitive domain consists of “perception and reasoning in which maneuver is achieved by exploiting the information environment to influence interconnected beliefs, values, and culture of individuals, groups, and/or populations” (ibid).

Based on the interpretation of the cognitive domain presented above, Paul Ottewell (2020) defines cognitive warfare as “maneuvers in the cognitive domain to establish a predetermined perception among a target audience in order to gain advantage over another party.” Another definition has been presented by Rosner and Siman-Tov (2018, p. 1), who assert that cognitive warfare is “manipulation of the public discourse by external elements seeking to undermine social unity or damage public trust in the political system.” Bernal, Carter, Singh, Cao & Madreperla (2020, p. 3) contend that cognitive warfare is “the weaponization of public opinion, by an external entity, for the purpose of (1) influencing public and governmental policy and (2) destabilizing public institutions.” Lastly, Oliver Backes and Andrew Swab (2019) understand cognitive warfare as a strategy that focuses on altering, through information means, how a target population thinks – and through that how it acts.”

Tying it nicely to the different domains, and the realization this will be the 6th domain of warfare, she adds:

“Consequently, the aim of cognitive warfare is arguably the same as within the other warfighting domains; to impose one's will upon another state. This is in line with one of the main elements of Clausewitz’s definition of war: “…an act of violence intended to compel our opponent to fulfill our will” (Von Clausewitz).”

This, too, is very important to keep in mind.

Mrs. Bjørgul then explores the limits of justified warfare, and refers to the UN Charter:

“Article 2(4) prohibits the “threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state.” The main exception from the prohibition of use of force is expressed in Article 51, which allows for “self-defense if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations.””

She then points to the inter-alliance debate held as NATO wrestled with the concept of cyberspace as a justifiable operational domain of war. Some argued that action in this domain only pertains to ones and zeroes, and are non-kinetic, and thus do not appear to use physical or violent means. Yet, as others argued, the potential consequences of cyberattacks COULD intentionally and directly lead to death and destruction on a large scale, warranting a lawful military response.

There is no meaningful distinction between a bomb at a power plant, or a cyberattack to shut it down. The effect is the same: deprive a part of the target of electrical power, hampering their defense and response to any other attack. The fact that the attack was in the cyber domain, rather than the physical, doesn’t change the outcome.

Which means that one could define cyber actions that directly and intentionally cause significant physical effects as ‘use of force’, which, in turn, would trigger the right of armed self-defense of the attacked nation state.

The problem is that for warfare on the cognitive domain, the goal is to alter people’s perceptions, which is neither lethal, nor physically destructive. To recognize such cognitive tactics as acts of war requires an overhaul or addendum to the UN charter to clarify at which point meddling with the perception of your own citizens becomes an act of open warfare that justifies a powerful response.

Another problem is how to quantify and grade damage from cognitive warfare. What are the effects of long-term manipulation of people’s cognition? Which is assuming that only traditional propaganda methods are used. We haven’t even discussed the new, direct ways that interface with our brain and thinking using technology.

Still, and tellingly, during the 2016 Warsaw Summit, the NATO Allies stated that hybrid attacks could trigger Article 5 of the Washington Treaty (!!). Where ‘hybrid attack’ refers to what, in this article, is called ‘cognitive warfare’, but is also more, and wider: the definition of this is still in process within NATO, and this was the first attempt to classify and define this new threat. NATO itself recognizes that such attacks are, in fact, acts of war, and that it will respond as such when any of the NATO member states are subjected to cognitive warfare by other states or actors.

Interestingly, it was the 2014 Crimea War, with the Russian use of both conventional tactics (tanks, missiles, soldiers, etc.) as well as unconventional ones (using energy supply as a weapon, propaganda, including on social media, cyber attacks,…), that provided a rude awakening to NATO, and prompted a new look into ‘hybrid attacks’, which led to the documents and ideas that I will lay out in this article. But where in 2014 it was the Russians who really used such tactics, it now seems to be NATO who is going all-out.

NATO agreed to this: “The Alliance and Allies will be prepared to counter hybrid warfare as part of collective defense. The Council could decide to invoke Article 5 of the Washington Treaty.”

(Warsaw Summit Communiqué, Issued by the Heads of State and Government participating in the meeting of the North Atlantic Council in Warsaw 8-9 July 2016, paragraph 72)

This is very important, as it also binds the US. It forms a tacit admission that such new warfare tactics were recognized as real, and could be interpreted as acts of war.

As an aside, NATO is aware of the problems with the definitions given, in particular of ‘hybrid warfare’ (which could also be said about ‘cognitive warfare’). In the article, NATO’s Response to Hybrid Threats by Michael Rühle and Clare Roberts (in the collection ‘The Alliance Five Years after Crimea: Implementing the Wales Summit Pledges’, (pp. 61-70), Edited by Marc Ozawa, Dec. 1, 2019 and published by the NATO Defense College, worth a full read, as well, if you’re interested in the history of the development of cognitive warfare), provides the following two excellent insights into some of the problems with this new domain and type of warfare.

First:

And the second:

In a different article, Todd Schmidt gave a succinct background on human perception:

“Humans live in bounded reality – a reality bounded by cognitive limitations. Humans see the world they want, not as it is. The complexity of the world triggers information overload in the mind. Coping with complexity, humans use mental shortcuts to filter information that informs decision-making. Mental shortcuts, known as heuristics, are influenced by personal human factors.

In political psychology, human factors include emotions, belief systems, culture, education, psychological/behavioral attributes, and experiences that filter the overwhelming information to which humans are exposed. Information filters reinforce perceptions of reality that conform to values and beliefs, or “operational code.” Filters act as cognitive limitations in the mind and the cognitive domain, which creates vulnerabilities and permits influence.”

That is the battlefield.

Each of us, as citizens, are targets, as this is influential on a meta-level: whole societies, to bend them to the will of the aggressor who employs an attack in the cognitive domain.

Keep in mind that this cognitive warfare is only a domain of attack, and not the war itself. This war is not between nation states, but between certain interest groups – in a very interesting article in the US around the 2020 elections self-identified as ‘the cabal’- and the rest of the world/those that oppose them. Which could be nation states such as Russia, or individual people like you and me, and everything else in between.

As an aside: There is so much happening that seems random, but isn’t.

Putin attacked Ukraine, mere weeks before the Ukrainian army had planned to invade the Russian speaking regions in the East and Crimea.

He is very careful, and seemed to head straight to the bioweapon labs, and brought that issue before the UN Security Council.

He has made moves that are anti-globalist before, and now, in the wake of all the sanctions and counter-sanctions, he has the freedom to force through even more radical changes: demanding payment for his energy (oil and gas) in Rubles, alliances with China and India (about half the world, right there!), and now coupling the Ruble to Gold. He KNEW, going into that war, that he held all the cards and leverage. The sanctions did not surprise him.

All his actions seem to be aimed at upsetting the Western globalist elites and bankers, and effectively trying to redraw the map of world power and world politics.

This is not a coincidence, and Putin seems to be working down his list methodically, amid panic and chaos.

Did he work with Xi and Trump? Most likely/definitely not. But was there at least some communication between them? Most likely/definitely. What Putin is doing is so huge, he needed the cover and assurance the other main players understood exactly what he was doing.

And while Putin, Trump and Xi might have a shared enemy in the Globalist (but very Western, i.e. EU and US) elites, that does NOT make them friends, despite the popular saying.

What is going on, is NOT what it seems, and NOT what we are told here.

Now, most of the official studies and debates you will see in the US, the EU and NATO, will be focused on preventing external threats of such cognitive attacks.

In a previous article here, discussing the history of bioweapon research, I cited a US military paper:

“The closure of our offensive program has had a serious and limiting effect on our ability to develop medical defensive measures, such as our capability to develop appropriate vaccines, antibiotics, and other treatments.”

The same will hold with any research into cognitive domain warfare. One cannot study only the defensive aspects, without also exploring the offensive aspects. Stronger even: without FIRST exploring the offensive possibilities, there is no point in trying to explore defensive measures. If you don’t know what is possible, how are you going to prepare for, or even recognize attacks?

So while the language in many documents and papers is defensive, pointing at countering Nation State operations such as from China or Russia, or from non-state actors such as ‘right-wing extremists’ who abused leaked strategies for cognitive domain actions (yes, Newsweek warned how ‘far-right groups under the banner of the so-called 'alt right' are using psychological warfare techniques learned from leaked NATO and British intelligence documents to spread white supremacism across the world’), make no mistake: the main focus of any such program is in the offensive capabilities.

Proof?

Look at this quote:

“Cyber and information operations harnessing everyday applications like Facebook and Twitter, and the news media, are used to influence the cognitive domain in countries around the world. These are the new weapons of war. Unfortunately, they’re not yet recognized as warfare because digital 1s and 0s can’t be seen, heard or feared like bombs or bullets. The U.S. and its allies must acknowledge the changing characteristics of warfare in the information age and move to defend against cognitive domain attacks.”  (This is the view of Colonel Deric J. Holbrook, US Army and a visiting ASPI Fellow to the Army War College.)

Harnessing everyday applications like Facebook and Twitter. Ok, and WHO controls those apps? Who are the CEOs of those companies OPENLY in bed with? At this point in time, the current administration in the US. Not China. Not Russia. Not some other group. They cannot warn about this new warfare domain, to justify bolstering their own use of it, the spending needed for research, development and implementation, without spilling (at least part of) the beans.

Or put differently: they create the problem, harnessing those Big Tech companies, along with their own data capturing and surveillance capabilities, and then try to have us pay for research on how to solve it. Typical big government: first create the problem, then leverage that problem to increase taxes and control.

As an aside: remember how Facebook experimented on its users: “Emotional states can be transferred to others via emotional contagion, leading people to experience the same emotions without their awareness. […] These results indicate that emotions expressed by others on Facebook influence our own emotions, constituting experimental evidence for massive-scale contagion via social networks. This work also suggests that, in contrast to prevailing assumptions, in-person interaction and nonverbal cues are not strictly necessary for emotional contagion, and that the observation of others’ positive experiences constitutes a positive experience for people.”

Translated: by manipulating what users can see on their timeline, they can, in effect, manipulate the users’ emotional state. Other studies even show that longer-lasting moods, such as depression and happiness, can be transferred through networks. 

What incredible power, simply by being able to control what appears on our walls and feeds!

And it isn’t just Facebook that did such experiments, as DARPA is also actively involved in such research: “The general goal of the Social Media in Strategic Communication (SMISC) program is to develop a new science of social networks built on an emerging technology base. Through the program, DARPA seeks to develop tools to help identify misinformation or deception campaigns and counter them with truthful information, reducing adversaries' ability to manipulate events.”

And counter. Which means, in other words, offensive use. Am I being paranoid here? No. Edward Snowden blew the whistle on what the NSA did, for example. The Guardian wrote about the interview between Snowden and Glenn Greenwald: “The Snowden documents, first leaked to the Guardian last June, revealed that the US government has programs in place to spy on hundreds of millions of people’s emails, social networking posts, online chat histories, browsing histories, telephone records, telephone calls and texts – “nearly everything a typical user does on the internet”, in the words of one leaked document.”

Such massive mapping and data collection activities indeed help with the identification of and defense against cognitive attacks and campaigns, but it ALSO gives an incredibly rich foundation for their own offensive programs.

Think about it: what does China do, as a matter of baseline policy? Demand Facebook and Twitter, and any other such platform, allow Chinese government control (i.e. censorship and prevention of outside manipulation within Chinese borders). They KNOW the impact such platforms have, as they use their own to full effect, so they preemptively ban all such foreign platforms or demand oversight/control over them in their own country.

Or look at Russia: very quickly they banned Twitter and Facebook. Not a coincidence.

To give another example:

Joanne Patti Munisteri wrote in Small Wars Journal the article ‘Controlling Cognitive Domains’ about ‘China’s reach, which is masterful and extensive’. And she warns, gravely: “China is already two steps ahead of America in this battlespace.”  “A comprehensive understanding of the reach of cognitive domains is crucial for anticipating and preventing further infiltration as well as shielding against future attacks.”

What is important about her article is that she breaks down China’s cognitive warfare into five operational areas: the education systems, entertainment/media/information operations, finance/financial sectors, health, and security/surveillance industries.

When we explore this new cognitive warfare domain, we have to realize that this is not something brand new, like the space or cyber domains. After all, Sun Tzu wrote about it millennia ago. What IS new, are the advancements in the cognitive domain, vastly aided by the advances in technology and the motherlode of personal information and behavioral data provided by social media.

Time to explore the direction this new type of warfare is being taken in, after which we’ll explore several present-day examples.

First, let’s look at what NATO is openly stating it is researching. Of course, with the necessary disclaimers that such research is just ‘exploring’, and the views of the researchers themselves, not of NATO, ACT or any of their member states. 

But keep in mind that ACT (the Allied Command Transformation) is one of two Strategic Commands at the head of the military command structure of NATO. As such, the studies they put out, while ‘technically’ just studies, are fully internal, initiated, researched, proposed, supported, by and for NATO.

A very important policy shaping document is the study “Cognitive Warfare”, by François du Cluzel. His opening paragraph doesn’t mince any words:

“As written in the Warfighting 2040 Paper, the nature of warfare has changed. The majority of current conflicts remain below the threshold of the traditionally accepted definition of warfare, but new forms of warfare have emerged such as Cognitive Warfare (CW), while the human mind is now being considered as a new domain of war.”

He continues:

“Cognitive Warfare causes an insidious challenge. It disrupts the ordinary understandings and reactions to events in a gradual and subtle way, but with significant harmful effects over time. Cognitive warfare has universal reach, from the individual to states and multinational organisations.”

He also mentions one of the pillars that provide the instruments of information warfare:

“This perspective is further strengthened by the rapid advances of NBICs (Nanotechnology, Biotechnology, Information Technology and Cognitive Sciences) and the understanding of the brain.”

This is eye-opening. Not just strictly ‘information’, in the classical sense of propaganda, with lies, half-truths, fabrications, etc. to persuade or influence others, but nanotech and biotech. Is it paranoid, or sci-fi, to think about means of persuasion that are not strictly information- or communication-based? Time will tell, but the article itself speaks of technology holding the promise to improve human cognitive performance, which would mean there will also be the means to achieve the opposite.

The article alludes to that in almost literal words: “If modern technology holds the promise of improving human cognitive performance, it also holds the seeds of serious threats for military organisations.” Further explaining that, it adds “while developing capabilities to harm the cognitive abilities of opponents will be a necessity.”

Not to repeat myself, but here we see it again, the need not just to explore this for ‘defensive purposes’, but also very clearly and openly for offensive ones: “In other words, NATO will need to get the ability to safeguard her decision-making process and disrupt the adversary’s.” Got that? AND DISRUPT THE ADVERSARY’S. Offense. Attack the enemy, not just with bullets and rockets, but with weapons against their minds and cognitive abilities. And if they can attack enemy armies and soldiers with cognitive weapons, then such weapons and techniques can be used against individuals, as well. 

Further in the article, it states: “Evidence now exists that shows new CW tools & techniques target military personnel directly, not only with classical information weapons but also with a constantly growing and rapidly evolving arsenal of neuro-weapons, targeting the brain.”

This evolving arsenal is referenced in another article written by Johns Hopkins University and the Imperial College London for NATO, titled Cognitive Biotechnology: opportunities and considerations for the NATO Alliance. It states, among other things: “Conversely, our inner minds are no longer off limits either: while emerging brain-computer interfaces allow us to train and direct computers, computers are increasingly able to peer into our minds and to train and enhance us. Or, to put it another way, while we have been working to improve and enhance our machines, we now realise that our machines can enhance, improve – and possibly control – us.”

Back to Cognitive Warfare: the author concludes by calling NATO out, warning them it is time to recognize this sixth operational domain, the Human domain.

The article points out an important distinction between information warfare and cognitive warfare. It cites former US Navy Commander Stuart Green, describing information warfare as “Information operations, the closest 2 existing American doctrinal concepts for cognitive warfare, consists of five core capabilities, or elements. These include electronic warfare, computer network operations, psyops, military deception, and operational security.” And it concludes that “succinctly, information warfare aims at controlling the flow of information.”

At the same time, “cognitive warfare opposes [and degrades] the capacities to know and to produce, it actively thwarts knowledge. […] cognitive warfare is therefore the way of using knowledge for a conflicting purpose.”

Chillingly, the article describes how this is not new, and admits we all are targets in this new domain:

“In its broadest sense, cognitive 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.” (Emphasized by the author of the article)

And “cognitive warfare is potentially endless since there can be no peace treaty or surrender for this type of conflict.”

We ALL are targets. And HAVE BEEN, for decades now.

As an aside, Rep. Mac Thornberry (R-TX) was the sponsor of the Smith-Mundt Modernization Act of 2012, that allowed the “domestic dissemination of information and material about the United States intended primarily for foreign audiences, and for other purposes.” Where before programming by the Broadcasting Board of Governors, such as Voice of America, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, and the Middle East Broadcasting Networks, could only be broadcast outside the US, they now could be spread through all types of media within the US, as well.

This allowed the US broadcasting arm to target the American population directly. The authors of that law, repealing an old so-called anti-propaganda law, made great efforts to distinguish the programming from the BBG from any programming produced by the Pentagon. But propaganda is not a uniquely military domain, so that ‘reassurance’ doesn’t really reassure. Reality is that it opened the door for US government-funded and -produced news and material to be disseminated within the US.

(See this story by Foreign Policy  or this interesting write-up by Philosopher’s Stone.)


So, we are ALL targets for the new Cognitive Warfare.

But how?

Trust is the target. Building empathy towards the desired group/outcome. Empathy is important, as it bypasses reason, and directs the subject’s efforts on an emotional level. The whole ‘woke’ scene is built entirely around this concept, for example. Empathy for those classified as victims, and utter hatred for those painted as oppressors. It turns a group into a highly destructive mob. It turns justice into lynching. ‘Why waste time with a trial, we know [they mean ‘feel’] he is guilty! Destroy him!’

Or to tie in the previous article, part 2: A lot of the Ukrainian efforts in this domain are geared towards empathy. Not facts, but ideas, and the emotional response those ideas elicit. Look at the the nuclear plants, and the danger they pose in the hands of the incompetent and irresponsible Russians! The nuclear panic lasted for a few days, and then stopped: did the danger go away, or had there been no danger to begin with?. And the news about Russian genocide which popped up, was used for a few days, then quietly took to the backstage again. And the news on the heroes: Ghost of Kiev, and the 13 braves of Snake Island! Totally false, but used, then ignored.

This process goes on and on: a vast and rapidly-changing news cycle is put into place, that puts out ideas (real or not, or only in part), that sows seeds, then changes the topic before people start looking too deeply into it, while leaving them with that idea, or with the feeling that idea gave them: distrust of the Russians, for example.

This cycle is meticulously planned. This is, indeed, cognitive warfare. They don’t try to tell us ‘what’ to think, but ‘how’, by adding a negative filter that we don’t even realize is there, but still colors our perception of all future stories.

This is how they treated Bush W., an unrelenting stream of stories and cartoons that depict him as an idiot. Now, agree or disagree with him [personally, I think he clearly is part of the elites that got us in this current mess], he was by no means an idiot. But we got coached to think that, and see everything he did/said through that lens, making it a self-fulfilling perception bias.

The same with Trump: hit piece after hit piece, never dwelling all too long on each before moving on to the next. With the result that people who did not pay close attention thought he was boorish, uncultivated, rude, mean, sexist, stupid, vain, a serial liar, etc. Why? Because that was the feeling that each of those stories left them with, and they remember that succession of feelings. And I say feelings, because in most if not all cases the facts did not support the allegation. “Trump mocked a disabled journalist!” Well, yes, he did, but he did not mock the disability of that journalist, but the fact that when confronted on the lies in his stories, he’d be speechless and blabbering. But people remember: ‘he mocked a disabled person with his disability’. And feelings are very hard to eradicate or correct…

Back to Cognitive warfare, and that study.

A few important takeaways from that study, are the following:

Discussing the establishment of a new operational domain, they wrote “while actions taken in the five domains are executed in order to have an effect on the human domain , cognitive warfare’s objective is to make everyone a weapon.” The importance of this cannot be understated. This effectively means that everyone becomes a combatant, a target. There will no longer be innocent civilians, as we ALL will be drivers for national policy and change, through our votes and protests.

Again, as I already mentioned this tweet in my previous articles, look at that tweet by former U.S. Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul tweeted (since deleted) that ALL Russians are in play, that there are no more ‘neutral’ or ‘innocent’ Russians, as each has to choose: support the war, or oppose it (and with oppose, he meant: openly, actively, on the streets).

This is a concept that comes straight out of the new doctrine and understanding of cognitive warfare. And with its emphasis on emotion, it will assign moral obligation, and with that, moral blame, which opens wide the door to an escalation of mutual demonization. And that, in turn, leads to unspeakable horror, as I detailed in Part 2 of this series.

The paper makes the following recommendation: “while the objective of Cognitive Warfare is to harm societies and not only the military, this type of warfare resembles to “shadow wars” and requires a whole-of-government approach to warfare.”

HARM SOCIETIES.

As we saw at the beginning of this article, Von Clausewitz defined war as “…an act of violence intended to compel our opponent to fulfill our will”. The line is very hard to draw, but if acts take place that are intended to harm societies, they become acts of war, that in turn would justify a response, up to and including a military response.

In their conclusion the paper quoted the work by other NATO researchers, that stated “Today’s progresses in nanotechnology, biotechnology, information technology and cognitive science (NBIC), boosted by the seemingly unstoppable march of a triumphant troika made of Artificial Intelligence, Big Data and civilisational “digital addiction” have created a much more ominous prospect: an embedded fifth column, where everyone, unbeknownst to him or her, is behaving according to the plans of one of our competitors.”

This conclusion shows the foundation for internal oppression. As a result of the breakdown of trust, the leadership of a nation cannot trust its own population anymore. And this loss of trust will lead to a police state. When the elites stop trusting their own people, they will almost immediately begin oppressing them. The oppression starts with total surveillance, lest the masses do or say or think anything that might threaten the regime..

This ends my third part in this series, with a deep look, through NATO’s own papers and research, what this field is about, and what it focuses on. Keep in mind that this is something I only recently started looking into, noticing the disparity in the propaganda waged around Ukraine (as I explained in part 2), and that I am no expert in this. I still think it very important, and I invite others to take a closer look as well, and analyze the tactics used.

In the next part, I will explore real life examples, and show how those methods and aims that we looked at today, can be seen put to practice in different areas of our life. But it isn’t all bad, as there are very effective ways we can counter this cognitive warfare, even as mere civilians, and Trump knows that, too.

All is well.

________________

Postscript:

Keep in mind that this is something I only recently started looking into, after noticing the disparity in the propaganda waged around Ukraine (as I explained in part 2), and that I am no expert in this. I still think what I describe here as a comprehensive view is very important, and I invite others to take a closer look as well, and analyze the tactics used. And more importantly, to look at my examples and answers to such tactics in the next part, as well, and help develop this properly. This is part of the war we’re all embroiled in. We are targeted now, so we need to respond, just the same. Covert war is upon us, whether we risk it or not. We’re not attacked by guns, this time, but we must understand the weapons used, and turn them against those who attacked us.

"To preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them."

Richard Henry Lee
American Statesman, 1788