A Substack Introduction To Cognitive Warfare
A War That Everyone Knows And Feels
In 2014, Russia annexed Crimea in a military operation that stunned the world. Looking back, it wasn’t just the speed of execution that caught attention. Rather, it was the lack of resistance. Russian state media, social media campaigns, and intelligence operations had spent years softening the ground. Through these efforts, their narratives flooded Ukrainian and international audiences with disinformation.
When Russian forces finally moved in, they encountered a battlefield that had been shaped by years of cognitive preparation. This demonstrated a new manner of warfare: victory assisted with the systematic manipulation of perception, decision-making, and social cohesion long before the first troops crossed the border.
By the time Russian forces moved in, a fractured public opinion prevented meaningful resistance. This demonstrated cognitive warfare in action: a victory secured in the minds of the people before a physical victory on the battlefield.
What is Cognitive Warfare?
NATO defines cognitive warfare as “a set of activities that manipulate human thought and behaviour to gain an advantage.” Like traditional warfare domains, cognitive warfare has its own battle space, weapons, and objectives.
Armies fight for control of terrain, navies secure the seas, and air forces dominate the skies. Each advancement created new battle spaces, necessitating new strategies and changing how wars are fought.
Cognitive warfare represents a similar evolution, but instead of targeting physical space, it targets the mind. This domain presents unique challenges as other domains have clear boundaries. For example, land ends at the shore and air thins into space. But cognitive warfare flows across digital networks, social relationships, and cultural frameworks with ambiguous lines of demarcation. It also is in private conversations and press releases. Victory depends not on territory gained or forces destroyed, but on the depth of reshaping perception and decision-making capabilities.
While NATO only recently defined cognitive warfare, its roots run deep in history. Ancient Chinese strategist Sun Tzu considered breaking the enemy’s resistance without fighting the supreme excellence. Mongol armies spread tales of their brutality, letting terror do their work before arrows flew. Religious crusaders wielded beliefs as weapons, reshaping entire societies through controlled narratives. WWII saw radio broadcasts and leaflet drops shape civilian morale. Cold War campaigns crafted elaborate disinformation networks.
It’s tempting to say that cognitive warfare is merely a combination of traditional psychological operations (PsyOps) and modern digital techniques. However, this view is too narrow. Throughout history, leaders and regimes have harnessed cultural narratives, art, literature, and even religious rituals to mould the target audience. Modern cognitive warfare builds on these historical methods, now with ruthless efficiency.
Today, entire governments, intelligence agencies, and private entities have to engage with this warfare. Whether or not we realize it, it is already shaping the way we see the world.
Is This Really True? Says Who?
Yes, it is.
NATO’s 2024 Cognitive Warfare Concept, developed by Allied Command Transformation (ACT), acknowledges that adversaries increasingly use cognitive operations to weaken military effectiveness and democratic resilience. NATO now considers cognitive warfare a potential sixth domain of conflict, alongside land, sea, air, space, and cyber.
U.S. intelligence agencies and Senate Intelligence Committee reports document state-backed disinformation campaigns designed to manipulate voter perceptions. The goal isn’t just to influence votes but to sow distrust in the electoral process.
In Ukraine, Russian state-sponsored disinformation has been extensively reported. Organizations such as the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab and the Institute for Strategic Dialogue have detailed how fake news, deep fakes, and misleading narratives erode public trust and weaken national unity.
Scholars like Professor Bernard Claverie at the Bordeaux Institut Polytechnique have analysed how cognitive biases make societies vulnerable to disinformation. Retired military experts like François du Cluzel highlight how modern conflicts increasingly integrate cognitive operations, extending their impact far beyond the battlefield.
There is a lot going on in this space.
And I personally think we have barely scratched the surface.
The Cognitive Warfare Exploitation
Modern cognitive warfare operates by systematically exploiting how our minds work. Like traditional military operations that identify and target physical weaknesses, cognitive warfare targets psychological vulnerabilities. But instead of breaching lines, it breaches minds.
Emotions override reason. Fear, anger, and moral outrage bypass critical thinking, making them primary exploitation targets. Consider how a viral video of alleged police brutality spreads instantly, while its debunking takes days. The initial emotional surge creates an exploitation window that’s hard to close.
People trust what others confirm. Cognitive warfare exploits this through coordinated campaigns simulating consensus. A network of fake accounts, paid influencers, and compromised experts can make fringe ideas appear mainstream within hours. Digital tools amplify this effect, creating false agreement at a large scale.
Group identity trumps truth. People reject facts that challenge their group’s beliefs while embracing falsehoods that confirm them. Cognitive warfare exploits this by transforming policy disagreements into identity conflicts. Once activated, these tribal divisions make facts irrelevant. Information gets judged by its source, not its accuracy.
These vulnerabilities don’t exist in isolation.
Successful cognitive warfare chains these vulnerabilities: emotion creates the breach, social proof expands it, and group identity locks it in. A single inflammatory video can trigger outrage, coordinated amplification can make it seem significant, and group dynamics can make it unquestionable truth. The target population’s grip on shared reality breaks down step by step.
This systematic exploitation of multiple psychological vulnerabilities creates cascading effects that can ultimately break down a society’s shared sense of reality.
It Is Already Here
Cognitive warfare operates now.
It turns our social media, news cycles, and cultural systems into weapons. Its impact manifests not in destroyed infrastructure, but in fractured societies and failing institutions. Victory comes through dismantled reality, not conquered territory.
The strategic math is clear: when adversaries can disable a society’s ability to perceive and assess threats, conventional military and diplomatic power becomes irrelevant. A nation that cannot determine truth from fiction or an ally from an enemy has already lost.
This redefines national security fundamentals. Military strength offers no protection when adversaries can break societal cohesion. Border defenses mean nothing if the minds behind them are compromised. In modern conflict, cognitive resilience is now starting to matter more than combat readiness.
The attacks target something more fundamental than bodies or infrastructure. It attacks our capacity to think clearly about what that means.