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https://theconversation.com/cognitive-warfare-why-wars-without-bombs-or-bullets-are-a-legal-blind-spot-260607>
"Imagine waking up to the news that a deadly new strain of flu has emerged in
your city. Health officials are downplaying it, but social media is flooded
with contradictory claims from “medical experts” debating its origin and
severity.
Hospitals are filled with patients showing flu-like symptoms, preventing other
patients from accessing care and ultimately leading to deaths. It gradually
emerges that a foreign adversary orchestrated this panic by planting false
information – such as the strain having a very high death rate. Yet despite the
casualties, no rules define this as an act of war.
This is cognitive warfare, or cog war for short, where the cognitive domain is
used on battlefields or in hostile attacks below the threshold of war.
A classical example of cog war is a concept called “reflexive control” – an art
refined by Russia over many decades. It involves shaping an adversary’s
perceptions to your own benefit without them understanding that they have been
manipulated.
In the context of the Ukraine conflict, this has included narratives about
historical claims to Ukrainian land and portraying the west as morally corrupt.
Cog war serves to gain advantage over an adversary by targeting attitudes and
behaviour at the individual, group or population level. It is designed to
modify perceptions of reality, making “human cognition shaping” into a critical
realm of warfare. It is therefore a weapon in a geopolitical battle that plays
out by interactions across human minds rather than across physical realms.
Because cog war can be waged without the physical damage regulated by the
current laws of war, it exists in a legal vacuum. But that doesn’t mean it
cannot ultimately incite violence based on false information or cause injury
and death by secondary effects."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
