cognitive warfare: rehearsing for the wrong tomorrow (part 1)
first in an in-depth multipart series
(note: this is a precis of the first in an in-depth multipart series on the newest and oldest front in warfare - cognitive warfare; there are many more pieces to follow; c. 2212 words - you can access the full piece here)
War has always been fought over land, sea, air, cities, ports, roads, bridges, weapons, supply lines, and bodies. And war has always been fought over “hearts and minds” - but the war for hearts and minds is fundamentally a psychological war - one of perception, fostering changes in allegiance and identity, deception, diverting action by an adversary down irrelevant rabbit holes, imposing opportunity costs, soaking up thinking time, attempting to impose learned helplessness, diverting planning and action and resources to wasted ends, all in the service of victory (a goal state, a tomorrow which has not yet come).
what does ‘cognitive’ mean?
The word “cognitive” should not be a decorative synonym for propaganda; after all, a serious account of cognitive warfare requires a serious account of what we mean by cognition. A reasonable definition is that cognition is the active, distributed process of transforming information into adaptive action; cognition is therefore the abstract psychological processes by which we know, represent, understand, and act upon the external world.
Three broad ways of considering cognition matter here:
The standard human information-processing model treats cognition in stages: sensory input is encoded, held in working memory, interacts with processes of encoding and retrieval from long-term memory, and used to guide behaviour. This older model remains useful because it clarifies how information is received, stored, retrieved, and acted upon.
The predictive processing model treats the brain as an anticipatory system, where the brain continually generates expectations about the world and updates them when reality produces error signals. Perception is therefore active inference, not simple reception.
The collective cognition model examines cognition as it is distributed across people, tools, institutions, and cultures. Groups remember, reason, and decide through shared practices, records, technologies, conversations, and social roles.
Cognition comprises many component processes, and these are the target of cognitive warfare. The target may be attention: what becomes salient and what disappears into the background. It may be perception: what seems to be happening. It may be emotion: fear, anger, humiliation, pride, disgust, fatigue, suspicion. It may be memory: which past is retrieved, rehearsed, and weaponised. It may be identity: who “we” are, who “they” are, and what “people like us” must now do. It may be trust: which sources are believed and which are dismissed before they speak. It may be prediction: what future seems likely, unavoidable, or already lost. It may be decision-making: which options feel available and which feel unthinkable.