Cyber Cognitive Warfare as an Emerging New War Domain and Its Strategies and Tactics

Abstract

Cognitive warfare has become the crucial war domain that determines the outcome of modern wars. Joseph Nye pointed out, “in today’s war, it is not whose army wins, but whose story wins,” emphasizing the importance of narratives to occupy human minds and hearts. This has been repeatedly observed in the “War on Terror” in Afghanistan and Iraq–Syria and the Russia–Ukraine war in 2014 and 2022. The strategic importance of winning human cognition by the use of non-kinetic influence operation had been similarly emphasized in the propositions of fifth generation warfare and Gerasimov’s suggestions. By recognizing the importance of cognitive warfare, this paper attempts to address the concept of cognitive warfare and suggest strategic and tactical principles for its practical operation and use. The concept of cognitive warfare is still ambiguous, blurring together with related concepts such as psychological warfare, information warfare, cyberwar, active measures, and Reflexive Control. Besides, the substantial conceptual differences between the U.S.–West and Russia have added more confusion. Thus, some clarification to distinguish the concept of cognitive warfare from other related terms seems necessary. Meanwhile, neither has there been any concrete proposition of how cognitive warfare works strategically and tactically. The literature and earlier reports only introduced various specific effects and techniques of cognitive operations. Nevertheless, how these effects and techniques are strategically–tactically integrated and jointly applied for a cohesive cognitive military operation is yet to be proposed. This paper responds to two such issues of cognitive warfare. In future warfare, the weight of cognitive warfare is anticipated to increase further. Hopefully, this paper will be a stepping stone to rouse interest in cognitive warfare and the development of its strategies and tactics.