Cognitive Warfare NATO -2-

China is going all the way

Cognitive warfare,

integrates cyber, information, psychological, and social engineering capabilities. These activities, conducted in synchronization with other Instruments of Power, can affect attitudes. And behavior by influencing, protecting, or disrupting individual and group cognition to gain advantage over an adversary.

Cognitive warfare, a concept being explored by NATO’s Innovation Hub since 2021, represents a shift in global conflict in which the strategic aim is to influence human cognition. Indeed, cognitive warfare is an increasing global security concern, driven by advances in neuroscience, AI and other emerging technologies, and the proliferation of social media. Understanding this evolving threat, and preparing to combat it, is crucial.

Influencing how individuals and groups think, react, and make decisions has transformed from a tactical to a strategic objective in its own right – and one that is increasingly within reach. The drivers of this development can be summarized in three words: knowledge, incentives, and means.

Daniel Kahneman argues in his book Thinking Fast and Slow that only 5% of decisions are rational. All the others are preemptively made, instinct is doing all the rest. The instinct is hackable. "People are hackable animals". (Yuval Noah Harari) and in that believe, powers are doing it.

IN THE MIND

Although the US integrated AI capabilities in its warfare, and is one of the best, the workfield for cognitive war is small. Thanks to the Targeted Individuals we know they are 'working on it'. Individuals and groups are being targeted with radio waves, many programs are in experimental phase with their effects on influencing the human brain. Cognitive warfare is more than that. It is about having power and control. Nothing new in the pyramid, but it is taking serious directions. Power and control. Not by keeping them poor and unknown, and preventing knowledge of how things work, not by the struggle of life or the 24-hour show on the TV screen to stop thinking and just consume. No, it is more 'sophisticated' and cruel.

Manipulation of the human mind. That sentence is the best description of this new concept. Direct and indirect influence on decision-making, emotions, cognitive functions, learning, communication.

All the tools to achieve this goal are present: controlling the media, the internet, the mindset, fake news, AI and virtual reality. All part of this concept. But DIRECT brain-altering programs, changing the electricity in the brain, the neurons' firing, the chemical reactions, that is hard core Brain War.

Developing brain tech to use during and before the war. Or to change the idea of war: no real casualties, no blood, a change of mind. If people do what you want them to do, give up resistance, you can influence the population and win. Without fighters on the ground. Yes, we have seen huge troops exercising in and around Taiwan. Classical warfare. But we enter a new one.

China is working and developing systems and is weaponizing the brains of the people in Taiwan. The will of man. The Russians do it. The US does it. The EU is doing it and others in the 5 eyes. But China is far ahead.

The first BrainWar in Taiwan

China is developing a new concept of warfare, which they call intelligentized warfare (智能化战争). First mentioned by the government in 2019, it is an innovative military concept with a focus on human cognition, which Beijing intends to use to bring Taiwan under its control without waging conventional warfare. Chinese thinkers have clearly stated that the core operational concept of intelligentized warfare is to directly control the enemy’s will.

The idea is to use AI to directly control the will of the highest decision-makers, including the president, members of Congress, and combatant commanders, as well as citizens. “Intelligence dominance” or “control of the brain” will become new areas of the struggle for control in intelligentized warfare, putting AI to a very different use than most American and allied discussions have envisioned.

“integrated warfare waged in land, sea, air, space, electromagnetic, cyber, and cognitive arenas using intelligent weaponry and equipment and their associated operation methods, underpinned by the 'internet of things' information system.” : direct influence on the enemy’s cognition.

These specific methods are described in a book published by Chinese strategist Pang Hong Liang and do not represent an official Chinese operational plan. In the 2000s, only a few theorists were discussing intelligentized warfare, but the Chinese government finally adopted the concept officially in 2019. Chinese military officers are active in publishing military theories, and often their personal writings are mistaken for the official views of the Chinese government.

To be continued…

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