Cognitive Warfare, Targeting your Subconscious

There is only one rule in warfare. There are no rules.

“Cognitive warfare is no longer science fiction. Cognitive warfare is a fact of the modern age and everyone, whether civilian or military, is a potential target. Cognitive attacks are aimed at exploiting emotions rooted in our subconscious, bypassing our rational conscious mind. This is achieved by exploiting biases, fallacies, emotions and automatisms, but also through nanotechnology, biotechnology and information technology.”

Commander Cornelis van der Klaauw, Royal Netherlands Navy and Strategic Communications

The five domains of warfare are land, sea, air, space and cyberspace. The core technical components of Fifth Dimension Operations (cyberspace) are cyberwarfare and cyber-attacks. The military concept now is to treat cyber as a place, not a mission. Cyberwarfare relates to fifth generation warfare, but transcends and expands that model.

“The primary objective is freedom of action in, through, and from cyberspace as needed to support mission objectives. The corollary is to deny freedom of action to adversaries at times and places of our choosing. The ability to do both provides for cyber military superiority.”

Gen. Larry D. Welch USAF (Ret.)

As many of our readers and subscribers know, Jill and I have been writing about PsyWar and Fifth Generation Warfare for quite a while now. Most of the strategies and tactics we have covered target conscious thought, conscious cognition, with the possible exception of neurolinguistic programming. But Cognitive warfare involves a different approach than more classical Fifth Generation Warfare strategies and tactics. Cognitive warfare is specifically focused on targeting your subconscious mind.

Cognitive warfare is a critical component of modern cyberwarfare. NATO’s strategic document “Warfare Development Imperative of cognitive superiority” details planning to develop a 10 to 20 year operational framework that defines defensive and proactive measures within the cognitive warfare space for NATO. In this document, NATO Allied Command defines cognitive warfare as including "activities conducted in synchronization with other instruments of power to affect attitudes and behavior by influencing, protecting, or disrupting individual and group cognition to gain advantage over an adversary." The nature of the adversary is open ended, and can include both foreign and domestic interventions.

NATO’s definition of cognitive warfare includes a cognitive attack that directly targets the minds of civilians (and citizens), meaning non-combatants. To their credit, NATO apparently believes (as do I) that this is a violation of the Law of Armed Conflict, but we also both agree that it is already happening. Therefore, it is proposed that countering cognitive attacks is a military task in which NATO must play a role. Of course, this logic can provide a convenient excuse for developing the capacity and capabilities to engage in and deploy these same practices if deemed necessary against domestic citizens. Another opportunity to advance “dual function” research logic.

Please keep in mind that one way that the “five eyes” intelligence alliance operates is that intelligence groups from one of the alliance members can target members of an allied nation-state in the event that the intelligence community of that nation-state is prohibited from taking action against its own citizens. For more information on the five eyes alliance, please see the excerpt from a recent “The Hindu” article quoted below.

NATO recently published an article in their journal, “Three Swords” titled “Cognitive Warfare” - written by by Commander Cornelis van der Klaauw, Royal Netherlands Navy and Strategic Communications and subject matter expert for the NATO Joint Warfare Centre. This essay lays out some critical ideas behind NATO’s concept of cognitive warfare.

From the article:

“Unlike psychological operations, cognitive activities are not directed at our conscious mind, but at our subconscious mind, the main drivers of our behavior: emotions. This takes place through hyper-personalized targeting integrating and exploiting neuroscience, bio-technology, information and cognitive techniques (NBIC), mainly using social media and digital networks for neuro-profiling and targeting individuals. We need to realize that individuals are at the centre of all military operations and strategic-political decision-making. Although they often sound like ideas from a science-fiction film, cognitive attacks are not science fiction anymore. They are taking place already now, and these attacks will continue to become more sophisticated.

Several countries are developing NBIC capabilities and collecting data for use in targeting the cognitive dimension. These activities are supported by aspects such as data mining and data analytics, and are further combined with artificial intelligence. Although most of the cognitive attacks remain below the threshold of armed conflict, the effects can be lethal and multi-domain, affecting all five domains of warfare. Further- more, these attacks are people-centric, meaning they have human cognition as their centre of gravity, and in principle that is a continuous, never-ending battle. Although not proven to be a cognitive attack, the so-called Havana syndrome, a cluster of adverse symptoms reported by U.S. intelligence and military personnel stationed abroad in recent years, could well be an instance of the use of cognitive capabilities.

China is globally one of the leading nations in the scientific development of NBIC capabilities. China conducts human research and experiments that are deemed unethical according to Western standards, but these experiments nevertheless attract scientists from all over the world. Within the context of the Chinese "three warfares" strategy, an integrated people-centric, psychological and legal approach, the Chinese have developed a data- base with the profiles of more than two million prominent individuals worldwide that may be used to influence decision-making processes.

LOOKING AT COGNITIVE activities in more detail, we can identify long-term campaigns taking place over several years, but also one- off activities. What both have in common is a structured approach to achieve a specific aim without the target becoming aware of an attack. Generally the damage is already done before the target realizes that it has been targeted. The reason why cognitive attacks go unnoticed by their targets is that cognitive activities bypass the conscious mind and directly target the subconscious of a person. In fact, within the subconscious mind, the primary target is the amygdala. From an evolutionary point of view, the amygdala is the oldest part of the brain. Before we go more into detail on the ways and means used for cognitive activities, we will briefly look at the functions of our conscious and subconscious mind as well as the relationship between the two. As the term suggests, our subconscious mind exists "beneath" our conscious mind. Contrary to the conscious mind, the subconscious mind is always active; it never sleeps. It regulates our basic organic functions, our emotions and, surprisingly enough, most of our decision-making. The reason why most of our decisions are made by our subconscious is that our conscious mind uses a lot of energy, which causes it to reach the limits of its capacity quickly. Actually only five to ten percent of the decisions we make are rational decisions; for the rest, we rely on our subconscious decision-making, which is strongly influenced by repetition, automatisms, biases and fallacies. We tend to then use our conscious mind to justify, rationalize and explain our emotionally driven decision-making and behavior.

What cognitive attacks then do is exploit these emotions, automatisms, biases and fallacies in a way that affects our processes of making meaning of our surroundings, affecting not what we think but how we think. Adversaries do this in different ways, integrating and exploiting NBIC techniques. In this context we need to consider that both biases (non-rational shortcuts acceptable in normal situations) and fallacies (conclusions without evidence, based on assumptions) are commonly uniform across cultures and therefore easier to exploit.

The preferred way to do this is via social media and digital networks, as these are our primary environment for sharing all sorts of information, and they have increasingly become our main source for news. However, there are more aspects that make social media an ideal vector for cognitive activities. Social media weaken our cognitive abilities as the content can easily stir up emotions and forces us to react quickly. Social media platforms are designed to foster addictive behavior.

On average, we are exposed to digital information systems between five and seven hours a day. Internet use disorder is now a recognized mental disorder. Furthermore, social media are ideal for collecting personal information and or carrying out data analysis and data mining. Drawing up a person's digital profile is a quick and relatively simple process that can be carried out with limited means.

The effects of the digital age are far-reaching: A paper copy of the newspaper does not know what we read; our tablets, however, do. The advertisement in the paper does not know what we bought and where; our smartphones do. The newspaper editor does not know what article we found interesting and shared with friends; our social network does. Closely related to and often fully integrated with social media are our smart devices. Smart devices collect all manner of personal physiological information such as blood pressure, heart and breathing rate, skin temperature and so on. All this information is relevant to target people in the right moment, for example when they are tired, hungry, stressed or angry.

Looking to digital networks, gaming platforms, with their more than three billion gamers worldwide, are ideal venues for cognitive activities. The platforms contain all kinds of sub-cultures that are in turn linked to non-gaming groups who can create their own games or modify existing games to infiltrate the gamers' lives without any control or regulations of the content of the games. An aspect that, in this context, should not be overlooked is that the lines between physical, digital and mental personas are becoming blurrier and with that, the difference between reality and fiction is also becoming unclear. Virtual reality environments in particular drive this trend.

Three billion gamers worldwide, who are subject to cognitive warfare. That is a mind blowing concept.

Digital spaces have also been known to breed echo chambers. Within them, people concentrate on a narrative that supports their beliefs and desires while ignoring information that is not aligned with their narratives.

 The Emerging Technologies:

Those embryonic technologies or scientific discoveries that are expected to reach maturity in 2023–2043; and are not widely used currently or whose effects on Alliance defence, security and enterprise functions are not entirely clear. NATO Science and Technology Organization result is closed micro-societies vulnerable to group thinking, polarization and generation of distrust. This becomes more likely when the time to think about the information is limited; the less time is available, the more people tend to unquestioningly follow a narrative aligned with their beliefs. In addition, it should be noted that echo chambers are an excellent venue to collect personal information that can be used for micro targeting of individuals.

Furthermore, emerging technologies such as synthetic media, deepfakes, artificial intelligence and data mining create opportunities to collect and process information that can be used for cognitive activities. One of these emerging technologies is the Metaverse. The Metaverse is able to replicate the physical world and provide a highly immersive social experience through the use of headsets, body suits and haptic equipment. At the same time, it can provide a significant amount of physical and mental information that can be used for psychological and emotional manipulation or, in the hands of adversaries, micro targeting of individuals.

In the following section, the essay starts discussing how to counter cognitive warfare- by developing cognitive resilience. The advice is relevant to individuals, groups, military units and government leaders.

Knowing one's vulnerabilities is important, but knowing when a cognitive attack is taking place is just as vital. This requires a high level of awareness and a basic understanding of the different methods used. For example, it is essential to maintain awareness about the information we unknowingly share that can be used against us. At the same time, technological solutions can help to identify cognitive attacks through algorithms and artificial intelligence, but also with real-time pattern and signature recognition. General awareness and technological solutions may alert us to cognitive attacks in good time and help us in determining the best way to respond. This brings us to the subject of creating cognitive resilience.

Within the Cognitive Warfare Concept, cognitive resilience is defined as "the capacity to withstand and recover quickly from an adversarial cognitive attack through the effective preparation of groups and individuals." In order to create cognitive resilience, we must look at the current ways in which cognitive activities are conducted, and by which means. In order to keep the initiative, we need to anticipate possible future developments. Currently such future developments include ways to read thoughts and emotions, which can enable measurements of the effect of cognitive activities. Based on the result, models can be developed to improve decision-making, but also to identify weaknesses to exploit.

This section of the essay develops the functional strategic and tactical adjacencies that are important to understand the cognitive warfare battlespace and related technologies.

THERE ARE OTHER RAPID developments in the fields of nanotechnology, biotechnology and information technology. In nanotechnology we see the development of nanorobotics, nanosensors and nanoenergy sources making in-body processes possible. Bioartefacts linked to nanorobotics can stimulate perception, cognition and behaviour. In the field of biotechnology, there are encouraging developments in bioengineering, biogenomics and neuropharmacology. One of the most promising projects is the development of embedded synthetic DNA or sDNA. This can be a useful alternative to silicon semiconductors. Currently it is possible to store 2.14 × 106 bytes of data on sDNA. This organic material could enable human-machine interfaces and is often seen as the 47th human chromosome.

In the field of neurocomputing, implants can be used to improve hearing and vision. Furthermore, neural nanotechnology can be used to bring nano-sized robots close to a neuron via the bloodstream and make it possible to link the human brain directly (i.e. not intercepted by our senses) to a computer, making use of artificial intelligence in the process. But we must keep in mind that this is a two-way street: such an artificial intelligence will, in turn, be linked to a human brain.

In April 2013, U.S. President Obama announced the launch of the White House initiative Brain Research Through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies (BRAIN). Its goal was to support innovation that would further our understanding of the brain; Russian commentators perceived it as a project to "hack the human brain."

In 2016 Elon Musk started the neuro- technology company Neuralink, which aims to develop a brain-computer interface to extend the abilities of people with paralysis. Of course, such an interface may also be used to extend the abilities of people without disabilities, for instance to improve their performance on the battlefield. Future developments include innovation in artificial intelligence, machine intelligence and means to enhance human brainpower, either through alteration of genes or directly, by linking the brain through physical peripherals or anatomically internalized products.

IN CONCLUSION

It is important to reiterate that cognitive warfare is no longer science fiction. Cognitive warfare is a fact of the modern age and everyone, whether civilian or military, is a potential target. Cognitive attacks are aimed at exploiting emotions rooted in our subconscious, bypassing our rational conscious mind. This is achieved by exploiting biases, fallacies, emotions and automatisms, but also through nanotechnology, biotechnology and information technology.

In cognitive warfare, the ultimate aim is to alter our perception of reality and deceive our brain in order to affect our decision-making. We are commonly unaware of such attacks before it is too late and they have already affected their targets. Therefore, we must protect ourselves by raising awareness and developing a system of indicators and warnings that can provide realtime information. The use of artificial intelligence can show us the preferred way to react to a possible cognitive attack. The human mind is becoming the battlefield of tomorrow, and this means that every person is a potential target. Warfare is no longer a purely military concept; it has become much broader and more complex. In the future, there will only be one rule in warfare: There are no rules. While other domains can provide tactical and operational victories, the human domain is the only domain in which we can secure a full victory.

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Five Eyes Intelligence Agency Alliance (Excerpted from “The Hindu”)

Who are the ‘Five Eyes’?

The ‘Five Eyes’ is a multilateral intelligence-sharing network shared by over 20 different agencies of five English-speaking countries — Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States.  It is both surveillance-based and signals intelligence (SIGINT). Intelligence documents shared between the member countries are classified ‘Secret—AUS/CAN/NZ/UK/US Eyes Only,’ which gave the group its title ‘Five Eyes.’

How did the alliance come into being?

The alliance between the U.S. and the U.K. evolved around the Second World War to counter the Cold War Soviet threat. The two countries, which had successfully deciphered German and Japanese codes during the World War, forged a collaboration to share intelligence related to signals such as radio, satellite and internet communications. In the aftermath of the war in 1946, the alliance was formalized through an agreement for cooperation in signals intelligence. 

The treaty called the British-U.S. Communication Intelligence Agreement, or BRUSA (now known as the UKUSA Agreement), was signed between the State-Army-Navy Communication Intelligence Board (STANCIB) of the U.S. and the London Signal Intelligence Board (SIGINT) of Britain. Its scope was limited to “communication intelligence matters only” related to “unrestricted” exchange of intelligence products in six areas: collection of traffic; acquisition of communication documents and equipment; traffic analysis; cryptanalysis; decryption and translation; and acquisition of information regarding communication organisations, practices, procedures, and equipment. The arrangement was later extended to ‘second party’ countries —Canada joined in 1948, while Australia and New Zealand became part of the alliance in 1956.

Though the intelligence alliance came together in the 1940s, it remained a top secret for long. The then Australian PM Gough Whitlam did not know about the existence of BRUSA, regarded as one of the most secret agreements, until 1973, as per a recent article in the Journal of Cold War Studies.

In fact, no government officially acknowledged the arrangement by name until 1999 and the text of the agreement was first officially released in public after over 60 years in 2010. 

How does the ‘Five Eyes’ network work?

The five partner countries share a broad range of information and access to their respective intelligence agencies. Initially, the partners are assigned respective SIGINT mandates. A Canadian intelligence officer writes in a military journal (2020) that the US is responsible for Russia, northern China, most of Asia and Latin America; Australia covers southern China, Indo-China and its close neighbors, such as Indonesia; the UK is in charge in Africa and west of the Urals within the former Soviet Union; and New Zealand is responsible for the Western Pacific, while Canada handles the polar regions of Russia.

The goalpost of the Five Eyes, however, has shifted following the collapse of the Soviet Union and the emergence of new global challenges like terrorism and the growing influence of China. For instance, the member countries, except New Zealand, have expressed concern about China’s treatment of its Uyghur population in Xinjiang, its threats against Taiwan and suppression of democracy in Hong Kong. 

And so, the ambit has widened over to other areas of policy and operations to become a comprehensive, all-source intelligence sharing network. The Five Eyes have become involved in ocean and maritime surveillance, scientific and defence intelligence analysis, medical intelligence, geospatial intelligence, counterintelligence, counterterrorism, and the continuous sharing of intelligence products via a secret collective database known as ‘Stone Ghost’, the Canadian officer notes.

To increase cooperation and maintain closeness, the Five Eyes Intelligence Oversight and Review Council (FIORC) was created in September 2016 as the “non-political intelligence oversight, review, and security entities” of the member countries to exchange views on subjects of mutual interest, compare best practices, explore areas of cooperation, and maintain contact with non-Five Eyes countries, among other aims.

What are the concerns?

There have been several concerns regarding the privacy, security and methods of working of the intelligence alliance, which remained shrouded in mystery for long. The alliance was embroiled in a major controversy in 2013 following the disclosure of classified documents by Edward Snowden, a former National Security Agency (NSA) contractor.

The papers documented the mass surveillance program jointly operated by the Five Eyes to monitor the citizens of member countries. Snowden described the network as a “supranational intelligence organization that doesn’t answer to the laws of its own countries.”

The U.K.-based charity Privacy International claims that bilateral agreements under the UKUSA reveal the outsourcing of surveillance activities to agencies without limiting their access to classified information. “There is no domestic legislation governing intelligence-sharing, meaning that many of these arrangements lack legal basis and therefore democratic legitimacy. The “third party rule”, often included in intelligence-sharing agreements, forbids the disclosure of inter-agency information to third parties, ousting the possibility of oversight,” it says.

In 2013, a Canadian court rebuked the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) for using the alliance to monitor the electronic communications of Canadian terror suspects overseas. The ruling said Canadian spy agencies had deliberately misled judges to expand their eavesdropping powers unlawfully, reported The Globe and Mail. Federal agencies were wrongly enlisting U.S. and British allies in global surveillance dragnets that risk harming Canadian terrorism suspects and could expose government agents to criminal charges, the report stated. 

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