The traditional style of language confrontation is a form of game in which the two parties in the struggle focus on specific issues or goals at a specific time and in a specific context, using language as the main medium of expression. In the context of cognitive domain operations, with the upgrading of Internet technology, the rapid development of modern communication technology, the innovation of emerging social media, and the improvement of natural language processing technology, coupled with human beings’ advances in cognitive science, linguistics, and communication With the new progress made in the fields of science, psychology and other fields, people have a deeper understanding and new understanding of language confrontation.
Language confrontation is becoming increasingly precise. The narrative style of discourse is the key to influencing cognition. Cognitive domain operations in the era of intelligence can conduct big data-based analysis of the audience, and through large amounts of text collection and data mining, we can find various opinions, tendencies, and positions that were previously invisible or easily ignored due to limited human power. and demands. By making good use of cognitive computing, you can better choose language types, voice patterns, discourse skills, narrative design, optimize the narrative perspective, theme, style, and the personal emotions, values, ideologies, and standpoint evaluations contained in the narrative, and more We should take into account the differences in communication modes of different languages and cultures, so as to achieve the best, fastest and most accurate strikes and counterattacks. At the same time, cognitive protection can also be provided in a foreseeable and targeted manner.
Language text design customization. Cognitive domain operations fundamentally require the use of information to exert influence, and the unique discourse used in the information text is the main basis for cognitive influence. To target the cognitive domain of people in a specific country or region, we must skillfully use the discourse expressions in the other party’s language and culture, and conduct in-depth research on the stories, myths, proverbs, aphorisms, etc. expressed in the other party’s language, especially the popular topics on the other party’s social media. , characters and their discourse characteristics, and is good at using authentic and novel language expressions of cross-cultural cognition to create a contagious language atmosphere of emotional identification. On this basis, we strive to make innovative expressions, fully grasp the different cognitions and needs of the other audience, organize multi-dimensional discourse power, and design texts in multiple languages to form new impressions and cognitions based on cognitive resonance.
The main style of language is popular. Language is the “cannonball fired at thought” in cognitive domain warfare. The use of language that is creative, expressive and in line with the laws of modern communication can cover a wide range of people and win more audiences. Therefore, popularizing the language subject style is the central link that determines the effectiveness of cognitive domain confrontation, and is also a key factor in winning recognition and winning hearts and minds in cognitive domain operations. Young people are the most active group of people in future wars and are also the main force in cognitive confrontation. The discourse forms and expressions that young people like to hear and see are the key to gaining the advantage of language confrontation in the cognitive domain.
Modeling the effects of language confrontation. Language confrontation in cognitive domain operations requires an in-depth study of the opponent’s main cultural environment, main cognitive narrative models, main cognitive shortcomings and weaknesses, and the characteristics of social media communication discourse, and masters its long-term cognitive models and the connotation of textual expressions. Rules etc. Based on artificial intelligence, modeling and analysis of the cognitive effects of language confrontation on different groups of people will help to conduct timely effect assessments, accurately grasp potential problems, and discover the fulcrum of strength. For example, it is difficult for general qualitative fuzzy assessments to grasp the micro-propagation effect of individual flexible maneuvers and the point-shooting effect of a single “discourse sniper”. The use of modeling analysis methods can provide relatively accurate conclusions. In addition, modeling analysis can also create strategic planning methods for language confrontation that combine long-term and present, macro themes and micro themes, agenda setting and random communication, drips of water piercing the stone and floods, and tolerance and tolerance with active release, which is better. to exert the combat effectiveness of language confrontation.
There are many different explanations for dimensionality reduction attacks, such as the crushing of lower civilizations by higher civilizations, the killing of cross-generation equipment, the control of high dimensions against low dimensions, asymmetric strikes that deprive the opponent of its strong points, etc. But in essence, it is “to attack the impossible with the able”. If viewed from this perspective, dimensionality reduction strikes have long existed in the history of human warfare and have manifested themselves in various forms. In the future, the characteristics of dimensionality reduction strikes will be more obvious and more decisive.
Mixed to make pure
“Those who understand change according to the times, and those who know know how to adapt to the circumstances.” As the field of war confrontation continues to expand into more “grey areas,” hybrid warfare is simultaneously unfolding in the physical, information, cognitive, and social domains, and is not limited to a single field or form. Hybrid warfare is purely about integration, that is, the comprehensive use of political, economic, diplomatic, military, public opinion and other fields of power, focusing on the comprehensive use of military and non-military means, conventional and unconventional tactics, showing the integration and development of traditional warfare and non-traditional warfare. Distinctive properties of force. Combat effectiveness pays attention to the realization of superposition and integration, so as to achieve quick results with less investment, and achieve political intentions and military objectives with the minimum strike. The pure nature of hybridization is chaos, that is, the boundaries between war and peace will become more blurred, the forms of expression will become more diverse, and combat styles will become more integrated. It is often difficult to judge the specific launch time of war. War and peace will be superimposed in the same time period, and war and peace will be superimposed. Non-combat status is even more difficult to confirm. The chaotic nature of hybrid warfare makes it difficult to warn of wars, prepare for wars, and respond to wars in a timely manner. The use of hybrid warfare is purely confusing. That is, compared with traditional warfare, the methods of hybrid warfare are more concealed. More struggles in non-military fields and the use of more non-military means allow war goals to be broken down into all aspects of daily communication and interaction, which reduces the risk of war. The sensitivity of war implementation is highly confusing and controllable.
Use wisdom to control one’s weakness
“Soldiers who, deception also”. War is not only a competition of strength but also a competition of intelligence. Among the “Five Virtues of Generals” in “The Art of War”, wisdom is listed as the first virtue, which fully shows that the ancients have long been aware of the role of wisdom in war. There are thousands of books on war tactics written all over the world, both at home and abroad, all with the purpose of enlightening wisdom. The victory of wisdom over clumsiness lies in knowing things beforehand and seizing the opportunity. Taking the initiative in combat can take the initiative, make time and space choices, mobilize various resources, and create advantageous conditions for victory. The victory of wisdom lies in understanding the overall situation and creating one-way transparency. He is good at uncovering the fog of war, has a clear understanding of the development and changes of the war situation, and can choose reasonable tactics for victory. The victory of wisdom over clumsiness lies in accurately grasping the center of gravity and grasping the key. Scientifically coordinate resources, focus on the focus of operations, and optimize key nodes to lay a foundation of strength for victory. The key to victory over clumsiness with intelligence lies in keenly seizing opportunities and winning by surprise. Seize the favorable conditions, avoid defeating the enemy, implement unexpected asymmetric operations, and obtain the maximum value at the lowest cost to defeat the enemy. The victory of wisdom over clumsiness lies in the correct use of human subjective initiative. People are still the decisive factor in winning the war. No matter how the times develop and the shape of war evolves, this will never change. In future intelligent warfare, the contribution rate of intelligence superiority to combat effectiveness is much higher than other factors. Human intelligence has widely penetrated into combat fields and been transformed into weapon systems. All-domain, multi-dimensional, and various types of intelligent combat platforms can quickly couple combat forces. According to Mission requirements build a combat system and independently implement coordinated operations, and the “smart victory” mechanism will become more prominent.
Use high to control low
“Technology is the core combat capability.” Technology changes the face of war, and technology also affects the outcome of war. The history of the development of human warfare shows that the military has always been a collection of technologies of the times. Whoever seizes the technological advantage and is the first to use a new type of weapons and equipment or a new combat force by surprise will easily gain a significant advantage in combat and will occupy Winning the battle. It has the advantages of cross-generation equipment and is the combat condition that countless generals dream of. It can achieve suppressive operations with high control of low. High energy defeats low power, which lies in the cross-generational crushing of equipment performance. New weapons and equipment are more advanced than old equipment in terms of information acquisition, maneuverability, strike distance, firepower yield and protection capabilities, and have combat performance that old equipment does not have. In the confrontation between old and new equipment, new equipment can give full play to its high technical performance advantages and achieve all-round crushing of the performance of old equipment. High energy suppresses low power because emerging technologies often trigger radical changes on the battlefield, causing combat methods to spiral upward and combat effectiveness to increase by leaps and bounds. The combat effect is like the crushing of hot weapons against cold weapons, informationization against mechanization, thus achieving The new way of fighting crushes the old way. Once emerging technologies mature and are introduced into warfare, they can often lead to changes in the shape of warfare. High energy controls low power, which lies in the unpredictability of disruptive technologies, which in turn leads to technological sneak attacks. Disruptive technologies can stand at a high technological level and target the weak links of the opponent’s equipment to implement contradictory special attacks. Due to the high probability of disruptive technology itself, it is very easy to produce a technological sneak attack, achieving a fatal blow without the other party being aware of it and unable to defend itself. Making good use of new quality and new domain combat forces in future intelligent warfare will become an important part of the outcome of the war.
Use fast to control slowness
“UI”. The history of war shows that speed is a key indicator to measure the military’s combat capabilities and the performance of weapons and equipment, and it is also an important fulcrum for leveraging the door to victory. Using speed to control slowness is considered to be the general principle of victory. War exists in time and space and must be affected by time and space. Therefore, time will also become a weapon. “Time is the army.” From ancient times to the present, time has often been an important object of combat operations. With the advent of the information age, the value of time has increased, and the special effect of using fast to slow down has become more obvious. The ability to control slowness by being fast lies in “being first”. You can discover and attack before the enemy. “Strike first to gain strength, strike later to suffer disaster”, by mastering the first move and playing the first move, we can suppress and disrupt the opponent’s actions, so that he can only be tired of dealing with it and be passively beaten. The speed that can control the slowness lies in the “surprise”, which can have the effect of catching the enemy by surprise and attacking them unprepared. Through quick judgment, quick decision-making, and quick maneuvers, the opponent’s reaction time is greatly reduced, making the opponent unable to keep up, make inaccurate judgments, and fight, making it impossible to defend and passive. The ability to control slowness lies in “agility”, which allows you to act quickly and gather excellence in real time. Through agile response, agile deployment, agile maneuver, and agile aggregation, real-time optimization is achieved, making the enemy invincible and defenseless. In the information age, some people have pointed out that “the past philosophy of war was to eat the big and the small, and the current philosophy of war is to eat the fast and the slow.” The phenomenon of time outliers in intelligent warfare is even more significant. Hypersonic weapons, laser weapons, microwave weapons, New rapid-kill weapons such as electromagnetic pulse weapons further push the pace of war to “instant kill”, making it possible to “destroy upon discovery”. Therefore, competing for time advantage and improving response speed are the keys to winning intelligent warfare.
Use groups to control isolation
“Two fists are hard to beat with four hands, and a vicious tiger is afraid of a pack of wolves.” Therefore, the use of large numbers to attack the small number, and the use of groups to control the isolated ones, have been regarded as the norm by military strategists throughout the history. The ability of the group to control the isolation lies in the “superposition effect”. By using large-scale forces to surround and divide the space, using more to defeat the smaller in number, using the numerical advantage to form a strength advantage, and using the implementation of super saturation strikes to continuously output the strongest strike force , to achieve cumulative combat effectiveness. The ability of groups to control isolation lies in the “aggregation effect”. By organizing a cluster combat system integrating inspection and attack, through multi-domain linkage, strengthening information empowerment, network energy gathering, system energy enhancement and other methods to enhance combat effectiveness and achieve 1+1> 2’s combat effectiveness aggregation. The ability of a group to prevent isolation lies in the “anti-damage effect”. There are many similar individuals in the cluster, and it is a decentralized group configuration. The overall combat group will not affect the overall function due to damage to a single individual or a few individuals, and can maintain long-term Time-continuous combat capability. The ability of groups to control isolation lies in the “intelligent change effect”. In future intelligent warfare, swarm weapons will be cluster combat weapons supported by intelligent unmanned control technology and network information systems. They will be networked, intelligent and distributed. Combat capabilities, capable of autonomously coordinating actions and completing corresponding combat tasks, represent the development trend of unmanned combat and intelligent combat in future wars. In future intelligent warfare, each combat group will be driven by “intelligence + data” to independently conduct online mission planning around combat objectives, and flexibly mobilize “material + energy” for combat operations to freely gather and disperse.
Make something out of nothing
“Unmanned operation is the trend and the future.” Unmanned combat systems are the basic force of unmanned combat. Compared with manned combat systems, they have “asymmetric” innate advantages in terms of combat capabilities and combat methods. Using nothing to own something means that the unmanned combat equipment system is becoming more and more complete, its capabilities are becoming more powerful, it can support diversified combat operations, and it has the development trend of being highly autonomous, intelligent, unmanned, and networked. Compared with manned combat platforms, unmanned combat platforms have many advantages such as ease of use, good adaptability, low requirements for combat environments, good concealment, and strong battlefield survivability. With their endurance, Characteristics such as high efficiency, operational flexibility, and unique combat application modes occupy a prominent position in modern warfare and have become an important means to seize information advantages, carry out precision strikes, and complete special combat missions. Intelligent unmanned combat systems overcome the inherent physiological and psychological limitations of humans. The physical space that humans themselves cannot enter will not be an obstacle to intelligent unmanned combat systems. It is foreseeable that future military operations without intelligent unmanned combat systems will become increasingly difficult to imagine. The extension of the boundaries of intelligent unmanned combat will induce new combat methods, from physical destruction in the physical domain to invisible destruction in the information domain, and then to cognitive domain intelligence battles, from cluster-type saturation coverage to extremely micro-type ant nest penetration, and so on. This not only requires the participation of intelligent unmanned combat systems, but also requires intelligent unmanned combat systems to be widely distributed in various spatial dimensions of the battlefield and gradually play a leading role. When an intelligent unmanned combat system carries out a sneak attack, the opponent will inevitably fall into a situation where it is impossible to prevent and passively deal with it.
Conquer cowardice with courage
“Husband fights with courage.” War is a contest between brave men. The brave ones win when they meet on a narrow road. From Achilles, who bravely championed the three armies in the Greco-Persian War, to Huo Qubing, who was granted the title of a wolf in the Han Dynasty of China, to those armies with strong combat effectiveness in modern times, most of them run their armies with courage and win with courage. Courage not only embodies the fighting style of disregarding death, but also reflects the fearless and high morale. It can overwhelm the opponent mentally and defeat the strong enemy willfully. It is said that “victory comes from gaining power, defeat comes from losing spirit.” Courage can control. Cowardice lies in a strong fighting style and the courage to risk one’s life to frighten the opponent. If a person is not afraid of death, his will will be strong, with an overwhelming momentum that can shock people, frighten people’s courage, destroy people’s will, and force opponents to give up in fear. Courage can control timidity, which lies in having a firm goal and daring to be the first. In order to achieve the goal, you can overcome all difficulties and obstacles, move forward courageously, do things that your opponents dare not do or think of, and achieve the effect of surprising the enemy. Courage to overcome cowardice lies in going all out, leaving no room for oneself or retreat, fully stimulating super combat potential, exerting extraordinary combat effectiveness, and greatly improving combat effectiveness. Different from the main purpose of traditional war, which is to eliminate the enemy’s physical strength, intelligent warfare will pay more attention to weakening the enemy’s morale, disintegrating the enemy’s will, and destroying the enemy’s cognition. In intelligent warfare, the struggle for the heart and mind will become more intense, and the party with the cognitive advantage will win over the other party and be more likely to take the initiative. Therefore, it is necessary to strengthen the offensive and defensive confrontation in the cognitive field, strengthen cognitive protection through the comprehensive use of multiple means, and at the same time interfere with, influence and control the thinking and cognition of enemy personnel, making their thinking confused, decision-making chaotic, and their will collapsed.
Cognition is the process by which people obtain, process and apply information and knowledge. At present, the cognitive domain has gradually become a new battlefield for competition, and cognitive warfare has gradually attracted attention from all countries. With the development of the technological revolution and the expansion of warfare practice, cognitive warfare is showing an accelerated evolution trend.
Cognitive technology is becoming a fundamental driving force in the evolution of warfare. Technology changes the form of warfare and also changes the way of cognitive warfare. If the large-scale popularization of information networks has promoted the information domain to become a combat domain, and the exponential growth of data and network scale is a sign of the maturity of the information domain, then the large-scale application of cognitive technology and the continuous iterative development of cognitive technology will become A sign of maturity in driving cognitive warfare. In the future, technologies such as cognitive environment, cognitive perception, cognitive control, and artificial intelligence will reflect the transformative impact that cognitive technology may have on social cognitive confrontation and military cognitive confrontation. Humanity is entering the era of universal communication, and global cyberspace is becoming highly interconnected. The Internet has become a battle space for all-round competition between state actors and non-state actors. Communication disputes and communication wars have become part of the level of high-intensity military operations. At present, major countries in the world are deploying at the forefront of cognitive technology and launching cognitive technology competitions. Through modeling and analysis, they seek to penetrate and control human brain networks, information networks and social networks; through deep calculations, actuarial calculations, clever calculations, etc., they aim to maximize Gain control over people’s cognitive world and cognitive domains.
The cognitive domain is becoming an important battlefield in hybrid warfare. In the era of intelligence, the way humans communicate is undergoing complex and profound changes. Offline communication has given way to more online communication, various new media platforms have become the main channels for the public to understand the battlefield, and large-scale social platforms have become the main battleground for cognitive game struggles. Therefore, the combat domain of future wars will continue to expand. The spatial domain will expand from land, sea, air, and space networks to deep space, deep sea, and deep ground, while the logical domain will expand from the physical domain to the information domain and cognitive domain. War is no longer limited to the physical threats of traditional wars, but is turning to social consciousness threats brought about by mass media and technological progress. Blockade and counter-blockade, dominance and counter-dominance around communication platforms will become the focus of cognitive warfare. Using information as ammunition to fight for control of international discourse has become the main method of cognitive confrontation today. From the perspective of hybrid warfare, ideological propaganda and indoctrination, penetration of values and culture, traditional public opinion psychology and legal offense and defense, and information network warfare have all become important aspects of cognitive warfare. Hybrid warfare can achieve the goal of winning in small battles or even without fighting through comprehensive gaming methods such as cognitive warfare. Attack and defense in the cognitive field will be an uninterrupted and normalized struggle, and combat effectiveness will continue to accumulate and be gradually released. .
Cognitive superiority is becoming a winning advantage in high-end warfare. Freedom of conduct in war is the lifeblood of the military. From a cognitive perspective, the deeper the understanding of the battlefield environment and combat opponents, the greater the freedom of action and the greater the relative advantage. However, with the exponential growth of combat data in wars, commanders have begun to face the cognitive dilemma of data swamp, data fog, and data overload. Having information advantage does not mean having cognitive advantage. An important military application direction of artificial intelligence technology is to process massive data in real time to help commanders get rid of cognitive overload and quickly form cognitive advantages. In intelligent warfare, cognitive advantages will dominate decision-making advantages, and decision-making advantages will dominate action advantages. Cognitive advantages have four key indicators: stronger information acquisition capabilities, faster artificial intelligence machine learning speed, more effective emergency handling capabilities, and higher capabilities to develop and apply new technologies and new knowledge. For example, public opinion warfare with new characteristics of data-driven intelligent communication and traditional military operations have been highly coordinated and integrated. This combat style that integrates virtual and real operations has stronger combat effectiveness than pure military operations, fundamentally changing traditional combat methods. Change. The linkage and superposition of cognitive advantages will accelerate the transformation of combat effectiveness and become the fundamental advantage for winning wars.
Cognitive theory is becoming the frontier of gaming to win the war. Cognitive warfare is a combination of soft power and hard power and is an important factor affecting national security in today’s era. At present, the competition for penetration and counter-infiltration, attack and counter-attack, control and counter-control of cognitive space is fierce. Cognitive science theory is entering the military field, and concepts such as cognitive load, cognitive enhancement, cognitive immunity, and cognitive subversion are being introduced. , has appeared frequently in the field of cognitive warfare research abroad. Foreign militaries believe that the cognitive domain is the “sixth combat domain” of human warfare, the core of the “intertwined conflict fields” in the era of great power competition, and an important direction for future military theoretical innovation. Obviously, cognitive warfare has become the strategic commanding heights for winning future wars. Cognitive theory has become the frontier of theoretical innovation. Cognitive technology will accelerate cognitive warfare and become an important “tipping point” for the intelligent military revolution. As new technologies, new theories, and new styles of cognitive warfare are being incubated at an accelerated pace, perhaps future warfare will take on a surprising new situation.
The evolution of war patterns always goes hand in hand with the industrial revolution. In recent years, the wave of intelligence has surged and has been widely and deeply applied in the military field, ushering in intelligent warfare for human society. Intelligent warfare is rooted in the intelligent society, with “human-machine intelligence fusion” as its main feature. The empowerment of intelligence makes the role of cognition in combat more prominent, and cognitive-led victory will become an important mechanism for winning wars.
The history of the development of war naturally pushes cognition to the dominant position
War in the information age occurs simultaneously between the physical domain, the information domain, and the cognitive domain. It should be pointed out that the physical domain, information domain and cognitive domain are not the exclusive domain of war in the information age. All wars and even all history are derived from the joint action of the three. They have come and gone in the long history of war, and have alternately become the dominant force in winning battles. elements.
(1) Energy dominates playing speed and strength. When the form of war changes, the mobility, lethality and protective power in the physical domain increase, often becoming the key to victory in combat. This is true for iron weapons and war horses in cold weapon warfare, muskets and artillery in hot weapon warfare, and ships, tanks, and aircraft in mechanized warfare. To sum up, it is energy dominance. Energy dominates the game with speed and strength. Whoever has a better, faster, and stronger main battle platform is often more likely to win. However, the effectiveness of weapons cannot be infinitely developed. Nowadays, platform mobility has been limited by human physiological limits and has encountered a bottleneck. Nuclear weapons also tell us that regardless of whether there is an upper limit to the development of firepower, its use will be strictly limited.
(2) Information takes the lead to achieve accuracy and integrity. The information domain focuses on the transmission and sharing of information. The development of information warfare has caused the confrontation between the two combatants to “gradually change from a problem of intensity, material and energy to a problem of structure, organization, information and control.” Information replaces energy and becomes the key to victory in combat. Information dominance means focusing on precision and overall control. Whoever’s weapon platform has higher strike accuracy and whose combat system has stronger information sharing capabilities will be more likely to win. However, the relationship between information advantage and decision-making advantage is not linear. As the amount of information continues to increase, the formation of decision-making advantage must also resort to intellectual support in the cognitive domain.
(3) Cognition-led development of intelligence and design. The cognitive domain includes perception, judgment and decision-making, etc., and has been a must for military strategists since ancient times. Ancient military classics such as “Sun Tzu’s Art of War” contain rich ideas of wisdom and victory such as “predicting victory first” and “attacking with troops through strategy”. In the history of war, there are countless examples of winning by relying on strategy. Cognition leads the development of intelligence and design. Especially when the form of war matures, confrontation between evenly matched opponents will always be dominated by cognition. If we look at the development level of energy and information in the past, there are still great constraints on commanders’ planning and design of operations. So today’s great development of the two provides conditions for them to effectively achieve their intentions. Being able to do it as soon as you think of it is naturally shifting the dominant factor in winning battles to cognition. The side with higher intelligence and stronger design capabilities can often dominate the development of the battle situation.
Intelligence will give cognitive dominance a special era connotation
Intelligence is not about letting machine intelligence surpass, replace or eliminate humans, but rather using it to assist, liberate and enhance humans, and achieve human self-transcendence through the integration of human-machine intelligence. It enables humans, who have been using cognition to transform the world and change wars for thousands of years, for the first time to have the ability to transform cognition itself. This transformation is no longer the accumulation of knowledge, but a leap in ability; it is no longer the patent of a few elites. Rather, it is a characteristic of society as a whole. When it widely penetrates into the combat field, the form of war will enter the intelligent war, and cognitive dominance will take on a new connotation.
(1) Expansion of cognitive space. In today’s era, human factors and weapon factors are becoming more and more closely integrated. The most typical examples are drones and intelligence. “Intelligence” mainly refers to autonomous systems, that is, simulating and materializing human intelligence and transplanting it into machines. Machine intelligence empowerment will allow autonomous systems to easily break through human physiological limits, enter environments that humans cannot bear at a speed beyond human reach, and rely on a certain amount of “on-site intelligence” to complete tasks that humans are unable or unwilling to complete. It may not really improve people’s cognition, but it will definitely extend people’s cognition in space and expand the combat space to extreme areas such as deep space, deep sea, and deep earth.
(2) Improvement of cognitive efficiency. There are countless examples of cognitive victory, but there are only two reasons for this. Either rely on perceptual cognition, that is, intelligence. In the age of information scarcity, the level of decision-making is positively correlated with the amount of information. From small to large amounts of information, the quality of decision-making improves almost linearly. It is said that “if you know your enemy and yourself, victory is not in danger; if you know the sky and the earth, victory is endless.” Either rely on rational cognition, that is, judgment and strategy. Clausewitz said: “Three-quarters of the situations on which actions are based in war seem to be hidden in the clouds and are more or less unreal.” Excellent commanders can always reveal ” The information behind “The Mist” is what is said to be “what everyone knows, it has already been written; what I see, it has not yet been formed.” But when information moves from scarcity to overload or even “explosion”, the function curve between decision quality and information quantity begins to decline, making it increasingly difficult to use complex information to form accurate judgments. At this time, intelligence seems to be coming as planned. Computational intelligence may not surpass humans in terms of logical capabilities, but its powerful processing speed can solve the decision-making dilemma caused by information overload.
(3) Cognitive interconnection and sharing. Combat is a violent confrontation between armed groups. Regardless of decision-making or actions, timely and effective communication between combatants is required. The advantage of information dominance is information sharing. However, due to the subjectivity of cognition, people often have different understandings of information, or even completely different opinions. The same information does not mean that the same information works in the same direction. With the development of machine intelligence, brain-computer interface and other technologies, their “silicon brains” will rely on the linkability that is significantly better than that of the human brain to promote the evolution of the network form from the Internet of Things to the Internet of Brains, and combat interaction will subsequently be based on information sharing. Moving towards situation sharing and decision-making sharing, the combat system will truly be realized and exerted.
Cognitive dominance will be widely used in intelligent warfare
Winning by instant advantage means “having the comprehensive capabilities and favorable situation to defeat the opponent at the moment when force is launched against the enemy, at the decisive point of the war.” It is the fundamental winning mechanism of war. The dominant factor in seizing and maintaining immediate advantages varies with changes in war forms. In intelligent warfare, cognition dominates.
(1) Relying on the advantage of cognitive control of time to predict and strike preemptively to a new level. Time is the only irreducible factor in combat, and preemption is the eternal winning mechanism. Intelligent warfare will increasingly seize control of time advantage. First, you must first sense the enemy. In 2017, the US military proposed the concept of “algorithmic warfare”, which is to use intelligent analysis technology to quickly extract high-value intelligence from massive amounts of data. The popularization of intelligence in the future will push forward the intelligent perception of intelligence to ensure that enemies are discovered from the source. Secondly, we must make decisions before the enemy. The hybrid intelligence of human-machine integration and the network intelligence of up-down linkage will help realize distributed synchronized combat planning, and all levels within the organization can realize the integrated generation of combat plans. The third is to act before the enemy. The troops can prepare for combat in advance according to the specific process of joint decision-making. Once the combat plan is generated, they can immediately switch to combat.
(2) Relying on cognition to create military superiority, unmanned swarms and group operations will become typical new tactics. Victory with more and less is the embodiment of “victory with instant advantage” in the use of combat forces. In intelligent warfare, victory with more and less is mainly the use of cognitive materialization, that is, machine intelligence, to shape military superiority and implement unmanned swarm or group operations. . First of all, the development of intelligent and additive manufacturing technologies has enabled autonomous systems to achieve cost savings and gain an absolute advantage over the enemy in terms of the number of platforms with the same investment. Secondly, when autonomous systems enter the battlefield, no matter how brave or tenacious they are, even the best soldiers cannot match them. Unmanned or manned-unmanned coordinated swarm operations will be both violent, saturated, and economical. In addition, the unmanned group combat formed by the combination of machine intelligence and bionics will demonstrate powerful systematic combat capabilities through self-learning, self-collaboration, self-healing and even self-evolution capabilities.
(3) Relying on cognition to expand spatial advantages, cross-domain efficiency enhancement and global integration will reach a new level. Intelligence will not only create a new combat space, but also expand the breadth and depth of joint operations. Autonomous systems with certain cognitive capabilities can secretly maneuver to deep space and deep sea space near key targets or important passages to conduct infiltration and latent operations, forming a new cross-domain check and balance advantage against the enemy. “The defenders’ towers are silent and their traces are gone. They are more mysterious than ghosts and gods. They are underground and cannot be seen. The attackers are fast and fierce, as fast as thunder and lightning. They are in the sky and cannot be caught and prepared.” It can form a new asymmetry to the enemy. Advantage. Use intelligent sensing to form a more accurate understanding of the combat environment, use intelligent decision-making to implement a more reasonable allocation of combat resources, use intelligent networks to provide more flexible access to combat platforms, and achieve flexible deployment of combat forces, full-domain linkage, and efficient energy release.
(4) Aiming at the enemy’s cognition, attacking the mind and controlling the brain, control replaces destruction as a new way to win. Compared with the traditional “conquering the enemy without fighting”, intelligent warfare has greatly expanded its ability to attack the mind and control the brain. The former puts more emphasis on “win on the road” and focuses on deterring opponents; the latter focuses more on influencing and controlling opponents. In December 2017, Russia’s base in Syria was attacked by a “swarm” of 13 small drones. Russia controlled 6 of them using electronic warfare means, which was the prototype of mind control. One is to fabricate information to influence. In the future, real-life audio and video synthesis, pervasive network attacks, and immersive virtual reality will provide more effective means to influence the opponent’s cognition. The second is to tamper with the program to influence. Such as using “core attack warfare” to tamper with the algorithm of the enemy’s command and decision-making system. The third is to directly control the enemy’s decision-making. Use cyber warfare, electromagnetic warfare and other methods to control the enemy’s “brain” attacks to achieve the goal of stopping and winning the war at the minimum cost.
Military theorists often say that victory tends to smile on those who can foresee changes in the character of warfare, rather than on those who wait for changes to occur and then adapt. In recent years, disruptive technologies represented by artificial intelligence have developed rapidly and are widely used in the military field, accelerating the evolution of war into intelligence. Correspondingly, the concept of war is also changing. Only by discovering changes in time, proactively responding to changes, and actively adapting to changes can we remain invincible in future wars.
From “using the strong to defeat the weak” to “using wisdom to control the weak”
“The strong wins and the weak loses” is a certain universal law for winning wars. Even in those battles in which the weak defeat the strong, it is often necessary to form a strength advantage over the enemy locally and at a specific period of time in order to truly win. In the era of intelligent warfare, the contribution rate of intelligence superiority to combat effectiveness is much higher than other factors.
In intelligent warfare, human intelligence has widely penetrated into the combat field and been transplanted into weapon systems. All-domain, multi-dimensional, and various types of intelligent combat platforms can quickly couple combat forces, build combat systems based on mission requirements, and independently implement collaborative operations and missions. After the end, it quickly returns to the state of waiting for war, showing the trend of intelligent autonomy. The side with higher and stronger intelligence can better develop and use the “wisdom to control” mechanism, and even design wars based on this, dominate the development of the war situation, and achieve final victory. It should also be noted that in the era of intelligent warfare, there are likely to be multiple stages of development from low to high. Try to keep yourself in an advanced stage and attack the opponent to a low-dimensional stage. This is also the mechanism of “outsmarting” by using high to defeat low. Use.
From “destroying power” to “destroying cognition”
As the form of war accelerates and evolves towards intelligence, the combat space gradually expands from the physical domain and information domain to the cognitive domain, extending from the tangible battlefield to the invisible battlefield. The cognitive space composed of human spirit and psychological activities has become a new combat space. Different from the main purpose of traditional war, which is to eliminate the enemy’s physical strength, intelligent warfare will pay more attention to weakening the enemy’s morale, disintegrating the enemy’s will, and destroying the enemy’s cognition.
By intelligently analyzing the opponent’s personality preferences, psychological characteristics, and decision-making habits, deterrence information can be “tailored” in a targeted manner, and the advantages of cutting-edge technologies such as intelligence can be used to demonstrate powerful strength to the opponent in a realistic way, making anxiety and suspicion Emotions such as fear and fear continued to ferment within it, eventually leading to its self-defeat. Big data, known as the “new oil”, not only enriches the source of intelligence, but also becomes an important “weapon” that affects the opponent’s cognition. By processing big data and deliberately “leaking” it to the opponent, a new “fog of war” will be created for it, making it fall into a state of cognitive confusion. In intelligent warfare, the struggle for the heart and mind will become more intense, and the party with the cognitive advantage will be better than the other party, making it easier to seize the initiative and take advantage of opportunities.
From “people-oriented” to “human-machine collaboration”
In traditional warfare, the organization and use of military force are dominated by people. With the widespread application of smart technology, the proportion of unmanned equipment continues to increase. In intelligent warfare, combat tasks will be completed by man-machine collaboration, and the two will achieve organic integration and complementary advantages. The third “offset strategy” proposed by foreign military forces focuses on human-machine collaboration as a key technology for development. Concepts such as “loyal wingman” proposed by them are also aimed at exploring the realization of manned/unmanned collaborative operations. It is foreseeable that human-machine collaboration will play an important role in future wars.
Utilizing unmanned reconnaissance forces to carry out three-dimensional and multi-dimensional battlefield situation awareness can provide real-time intelligence support for manned combat forces; using unmanned platforms to carry relay loads can continuously provide communication relay support for manned combat forces; using unmanned combat forces to penetrate into the front battlefield, It can attract enemy attacks, force the enemy to expose its position, and provide target guidance and fire support for manned combat forces; using unmanned transportation equipment to provide material supplies to the front line can improve logistics support efficiency, reduce transportation costs, and reduce unnecessary casualties. With the assistance of artificial intelligence, manned combat forces and unmanned combat forces will achieve scientific division of labor and reasonable coordination in terms of quantity, scale, functions, etc., thereby maximizing overall effectiveness.
From “eating the small with the big” to “eating the slow with the fast”
In traditional wars, it is often necessary to increase the number of troops to make up for shortcomings in equipment performance and other aspects. “Soldiers love the main speed”, the rapid development of military intelligence has greatly improved the speed of information transmission and weapon strike accuracy, greatly reduced the time for reconnaissance and early warning, intelligence processing, command decision-making, fire strikes, damage assessment, and accelerated the OODA kill chain cycle , making “discovery and destruction” possible.
New rapid-kill weapons such as hypersonic missiles, laser weapons, microwave weapons, and electromagnetic pulse weapons have further pushed the pace of war to “instant kill.” In the Gulf War, the loop time of the OODA loop took 3 days; in the Iraq War, the loop time has been shortened to less than 10 minutes; and in the Syrian War, the loop time has almost achieved near real-time. In intelligent warfare, the use of unmanned platforms that integrate surveillance and combat to quickly and precisely eliminate high-value targets such as the enemy’s core command posts and high-level commanders will cause the opponent to suffer heavy damage before it has time to respond, and may even face the danger of paralysis. It can be seen that victory does not necessarily favor the side with large military strength. The side that moves quickly and accurately will be more likely to gain the upper hand on the battlefield. According to statistics, the reaction time required for artificial intelligence to respond to battlefield changes is more than 400 times faster than that of humans. Faced with the ever-changing battlefield situation, people will be more inclined to use artificial intelligence technology to realize adaptive planning and autonomous decision-making of the command and control system, so that the command and control mode changes from “people on the loop” to “people outside the loop”, thereby mitigating the While reducing the burden on command personnel, it can improve combat efficiency and the success rate of mission execution.
From “Integration to Win” to “Cluster to Win”
The traditional equipment development concept is to invest a large amount of money in the research and development of highly integrated, sophisticated weapon platforms, in order to achieve dimensionality reduction against the enemy by virtue of generational advantages and performance advantages in war. However, the development and deployment of multi-functional high-end platforms not only requires a lot of time and money, but when multiple software and hardware modules are integrated into a single weapon platform, there may also be mutual incompatibility. Once the platform is destroyed, significant losses will occur. The military application of disruptive technologies such as artificial intelligence has promoted the rapid development of unmanned swarms. Unmanned swarms have the advantages of large scale, low overall cost, and decentralization. The unmanned platforms coordinate with each other and cooperate with each other. They can make decisions independently and carry out combat tasks in an organized manner. Even if some unmanned platforms are destroyed, the overall operation will not be affected. efficacy. The operational concepts such as “decision-centered warfare” and “mosaic warfare” proposed by foreign military forces focus on using unmanned swarms to complete combat missions. In intelligent warfare, by dispersing reconnaissance and surveillance, information communication, command and control, fire strike and other functions into a large number of unmanned combat units with a single function, a highly robust and elastic “kill network” is constructed, and then based on mission needs Adjusting the combination method will allow powerful group intelligence to emerge, creating great uncertainty for the opponent, thereby trapping the opponent in the judgment link of the OODA loop, unable to make effective decisions. In addition, due to the large number of unmanned swarms, the opponent’s detection, tracking, and interception capabilities can quickly reach saturation. Because the opponent cannot destroy all unmanned platforms in the swarm, the opponent has to face the dilemma of defense failure.
From “military dominance” to “diversified mixture”
Traditional war mainly relies on violent means to make the enemy succumb to one’s own will. It usually has a strong war intensity and has a clear boundary between peacetime and wartime. As the field of military struggle continues to expand into new fields such as space, network, and intelligence, and the role of economic, cultural, diplomatic, legal and other means in war continues to become more prominent, intelligent warfare will be carried out in many fields represented by “grey zones” In the form of “multi-pronged approach”. The intensity of war may weaken, and the boundaries between peace and war will become more blurred. Whether it is the Saudi oil fields that were attacked by drones in 2019, which caused half of its oil production to cease, or the largest oil pipeline in the United States that suffered a cyber attack in 2021, which caused a large-scale oil shortage, the far-reaching impact of various new attack methods cannot be ignored. underestimate.
As intelligent technology develops and matures, it will become more common to use a variety of means to launch attacks on opponents’ industrial, transportation, financial, communications, energy, medical and other facilities and networks. The threshold for intelligent warfare will show a downward trend, and warring parties may resort to undeclared warfare to launch hybrid wars that integrate economic warfare, diplomatic warfare, cyber warfare, public opinion warfare, psychological warfare, legal warfare and other types of warfare, leaving opponents exhausted. cope.
From “actual combat test” to “experimental exercise”
Under traditional conditions, due to the lack of scientific simulation and evaluation tools, the true capabilities of the military can only be tested in actual combat. Under intelligent conditions, virtual reality technology can be used to create virtual scenes with a strong three-dimensional sense and realism based on the actual battlefield environment and mission background. This scene can not only restore objective things such as weapons and equipment from multiple dimensions such as sound, appearance, and performance, but also simulate various severe weather such as heavy fog, heavy rain, and blizzards, and visually display the terrain, meteorology, hydrology, etc. of the battlefield. Electromagnetic, nuclear and other information is close to the real situation on the battlefield.
Setting the imaginary enemy in the virtual environment based on the characteristics of the enemy in reality and conducting intelligent simulation of the possible direction of the war situation can enable officers and soldiers to “experience” the war several times in virtual reality before the official war begins, thereby making a better understanding of equipment performance, With a clear understanding of the rhythm of the war and the situation between ourselves and the enemy, you will be more able to perform realistic tasks with ease. Before the outbreak of the Iraq War, the US military secretly developed a computer game that simulated the combat environment in Baghdad. Among the personnel sent to perform tasks in Iraq, the survival rate of those who received game training was as high as 90%. As the data collected in reality continue to be enriched and improved, the construction of the virtual battlefield will become more realistic, the prediction of the direction of the battlefield situation will be more accurate, and the comprehensive assessment of the exercise will be more credible. Both hostile parties will strive to use intelligent deduction. If the outcome of the war is known in advance, it will be possible to “subdue the enemy’s troops” without fighting or with a small battle.
Judging from the latest local war practice, cognitive domain operations have become an important variable that profoundly affects the direction of war. In cognitive domain operations, all parties compete fiercely for control of public opinion, information guidance, and cognitive shaping. There are not only physical confrontations, but also competitions in virtual space, demonstrating the distinctive characteristics of “technology +” in the digital era. Exploring the way to win in cognitive domain operations is of great practical significance for controlling the initiative in cognitive domain operations and winning future wars.
Seizing control of the brain has become the ultimate goal of cognitive domain operations
The brain is the material basis of all thinking activities and the command center that influences and controls human behavior changes. Feeling, perception and consciousness constitute the three aspects of the world that the brain reflects. How to win the right to control the brain has increasingly become the focus of research and attention by all warring parties in the field of cognitive domain operations.
Actively fight for sensory control. Feeling is the reaction caused by the characteristics of objective things in the human brain, and is the basis for various complex psychological processes. With the rapid development of brain science, molecular biology, neurochemistry and other disciplines, humans have gradually gained the ability to intervene and control the brain at the physiological level. According to foreign experimental results, inhaling oxytocin will make people more trusting of others and more empathetic, thereby affecting a person’s prosociality and moral performance. In future operations, the warring parties will use physical stimulation such as sound, light and electricity, or chemical drugs to act on the target’s hearing, vision, smell and other sensory systems. They may even directly act on the human brain to stimulate the target’s brain. Specific emotional reactions can achieve cognitive influence and control on the physiological level.
Effective competition for perceptual suppression. Perception is a psychological process formed on the basis of sensation and reflects the overall image and surface connection of objective things. Among them, the individual’s attitude, motivation, interest, as well as past experience and future expectations are the key variables that affect the individual’s perception of the perceptual target. During wartime, warring parties aim at the target’s psychological doubts, weaknesses, and needs, seize favorable opportunities, and use specific information to emotionally influence, mentally induce, or disrupt the target’s perception in order to increase the target’s perception of the target. The expectation of war risks weakens their will to resist and their determination to fight, thereby achieving the purpose of subduing the enemy with a small war, less fighting or even no fighting.
Comprehensive competition for the right to shape consciousness. Consciousness is realized through psychological processes such as feeling, perception, and thinking, and is manifested as the unity of knowledge, emotion, and intention. The fundamental purpose of war is to force the enemy to surrender. Judging from the war practice at home and abroad in ancient and modern times, in order to win the right to shape consciousness, the warring parties will do their best to mobilize all available military power and comprehensively use political, economic, cultural, diplomatic and other means to carry out political disintegration and diplomatic measures against the enemy. Isolation, guidance of public opinion, and declaration of legal principles can trigger rational thinking, ethical resonance, or value recognition of target individuals or groups, thereby changing their worldview, outlook on life, and values, forming a relatively stable and long-term cognitive influence or control, thereby achieving “complete victory.” “the goal of.
Controlling information becomes the key to cognitive domain operations
The weapon and ammunition of cognitive domain operations is information. Mastering the initiative in the generation, identification, acquisition, dissemination and feedback of information is the key to gaining battlefield advantage in the cognitive domain.
Actively implement strong psychological stimulation to promote information penetration. Modern warfare is fierce and complex, with various elements of confrontation unfolding in multi-dimensional and multi-domain contexts, and fighter jets fleeting. The forces and methods acting in the cognitive domain must keep up with the development and changes of the battlefield situation, and make extensive use of strong psychological stimulation methods such as subliminal information implantation, acousto-optical electromagnetic psychological nuisance damage, and non-contact emotional control to take the initiative to induce the target. The subject’s emotions, will, thoughts, beliefs, etc. appear chaotic, confused or radically changed, thereby achieving the purpose of controlling and influencing the cognitive system of the target subject.
Extensive use of intelligent algorithms to achieve accurate push. As the Internet penetrates into every aspect of human life, everyone will leave massive amounts of data and information online. During wartime, warring parties will use modern information technologies such as big data, cloud computing, the Internet of Things, and blockchain to analyze the target’s social data, trajectory data, financial data, online shopping records, search records, personal communication records and other network data. The information is deeply mined and associated to achieve a “cognitive portrait” of the target object, and the target object’s interest preferences, behavioral trends, interpersonal relationships and value orientations are systematically analyzed, thereby three-dimensionally grasping the characteristics of relevant individuals or specific groups. Then, with the help of intelligent algorithm technology, personalized and customized cognitive information is accurately pushed to the target object, thereby affecting the target object’s attitude, emotion and value judgment towards the war, thereby promoting the realization of one’s own combat objectives and political intentions.
Effectively aggregate social support systems to achieve overall linkage. The social support system is the material and spiritual help and support that a person can obtain from others in his or her social network. It is a key factor that affects and determines the emotional support and cognitive direction of an individual. It can be said that for the success of cognitive domain operations, it is crucial to obtain the support and assistance of the target’s social support system. With the help of modern information technology, we can effectively connect to the target’s relatives, friends, classmates, partners and other specific social relations. By exerting targeted influence on the above-mentioned relations, we can gain the understanding, support and trust of the other party, and mobilize the specific relations to When the target object exerts influence, it is easier to win the trust and acceptance of the target object, and it is easier for the target object to undergo cognitive changes, thereby achieving the purpose of cognitive influence and control on the target object.
Virtual space becomes the main battlefield for cognitive domain operations
With the continuous expansion of human virtual space, virtual space is becoming the main battlefield of modern warfare, especially cognitive domain warfare, which determines the outcome of future wars to a certain extent.
Emerging communication forms have become new means of warfare in the cognitive domain. With the continuous development of mobile Internet technology, emerging communication forms represented by social media have gradually become a new platform and mainstream position for cognitive confrontation. Judging from recent local wars, the status and role of social media has become more and more prominent. All warring parties use personal blogs, forums and other platforms to publish battlefield pictures, videos, and comments in real time, which has not only become a global mobile online media terminal. It has also become the main battleground for the value perception game among different countries and different factions around the world. Emerging communication forms such as social media, with their unique decentralization and interactivity characteristics, have broken the information monopoly and information control in traditional communication methods and spawned numerous product styles. While meeting people’s information needs, they are also Unknowingly changing people’s perceptions. It is foreseeable that social media will play an increasingly prominent role in cognitive domain operations in the future.
Cyberspace has become a new space for cognitive domain operations. Under the conditions of informatization and intelligence, the threshold of network technology has been greatly reduced, making it possible to watch the game in real time around the world. Modern warfare has developed from “living room warfare” in the television era to “handheld warfare” in today’s all-media era. Online live broadcast is more intuitive and richer than any form of battlefield reporting, and “global synchronicity” has become a prominent feature. Through live broadcasts on the Internet, videos and pictures of fierce battles between the two warring parties, as well as numerous burned tanks and armored vehicles, as well as homes destroyed by the war and refugees fleeing their homes, can be visually displayed. People can see the micro-state of individual civilians and soldiers on both sides through the Internet. The “transparency” of the battlefield makes any attempt to conceal the truth and false statements more and more difficult. But on the other hand, the emergence of technologies such as intelligent voice cloning and video portrait simulation replacement means that what people see may not necessarily be “as seen” and what they hear may not be “as heard”. Cognition under online live broadcasts Domain operations add more room for possibility and imagination.
The intelligent network army has become a new force in cognitive domain warfare. The development of information networks has broken through the authenticity limitations of interpersonal communication, and it is difficult for us to determine whether the other end of the network is a real person. Based on the needs of large-scale interaction, intelligent, automated, and large-scale cyberspace robots are emerging. They are widely active in every corner of cyberspace. These intelligent network armies have the capabilities of intelligent recognition, intelligent response and even brain-like thinking. They are tireless and work around the clock. Intelligent network armies are becoming an important force in future cognitive domain operations. Judging from the current development trends of related technologies, major countries and even business organizations in the world are focusing on the potential prospects of network robots in group penetration, live broadcast follow-up, shaping public opinion, and managing network crises. In the flexible guidance of network intelligent robots, Increase research and development efforts on key technologies such as automatic acquisition of technology groups, automatic cultivation and group penetration, and provide intelligent and efficient technical support for public opinion guidance, cognitive shaping, and behavioral guidance and control by discovering and effectively utilizing the behavioral patterns of network users.
Modern warfare, according to the characteristics of material form, usually divides the combat domain into the physical domain, the information domain, and the cognitive domain. The three domains interact with each other to form the field and soil for military confrontation. Although cognitive domain operations occur in the cognitive domain, their operational support often spans various fields. War practice shows that with the enhanced effectiveness of hard strikes in the physical domain, cognitive formation can often be accelerated, and cognitive realization can better meet combat needs.
Cognitive offense and defense cannot be separated from physical support
Today’s world is a world where everything is interconnected. The collection of different objects connected to each other greatly enhances the function of independent individuals acting alone. Cognitive domain operations are never isolated operations between cognitive carriers. Only by integrating cognitive offense and defense into an integrated joint operations chain, closely integrating with physical domain military strike operations, and tightly integrating with the entire combat system can we fully exert combat effectiveness.
The starting point of cognition. Existence determines consciousness. Thinking and cognition is not a fairy from the sky, but a true or tortuous reflection of the real world. Without the foundation of the material world, thinking and cognition will lose the source of information, the basis for analysis and judgment, and the accuracy of decision-making and action, making it difficult for people to trust, recognize, and rely on. Even the most psychedelic science fiction wars still have references to real combat targets, specific combat objectives, and corresponding combat paths. Therefore, intelligence reconnaissance analysis has become an indispensable and important link for commanders to organize troops and plan. “Without investigation, there is no right to speak” is regarded as a golden rule that must be followed in decision-making. Battlefield simulation simulations have become an important step for the success of combat operations. In history, most of the combat commands of accomplished generals and classic combat cases that can withstand the test of history and practice are all based on full investigation and research and scientific intelligence analysis. Without the hard-core support of the real world, “human beings think about , and God laughs.”
The basis of cognitive effects. A golden rule of operations in the cognitive domain is that soft power at the cognitive level must be supported by hard strikes at the physical level in order to ensure and strengthen its role. Strong military pressure is a necessary prerequisite for cognitive means to work, and continuous victory on the battlefield is the core support for winning cognitive wars. If the United States does not have the high-pressure pressure of its super comprehensive national strength and superior technology, its “Star Wars Plan” may not really work. If cognitive domain operations lack the support of specific military operations in the physical domain, they will never produce the good effects of doubting, confusing, deterring, and defeating the enemy. To grasp the initiative in thinking and cognition and to take the initiative in cognitive domain operations, we must not only strengthen the construction of cognitive ontology, improve the ability to directly use strategies and technical means to strengthen self-protection, intervene and influence the opponent’s thinking and cognition, but also actively strive to The physical domain leverages the conduction effect of military operations in the physical domain to enhance thinking and cognition.
The starting point for cognitive realization. Marxism believes that once theory grasps the masses, it will also become material force. From the perspective of cognitive domain combat, the spiritual creation at the superstructure level of cognition will not automatically turn into material power. Only by being attached to a certain material carrier and practical grasp can it be possible to realize spiritual to material and consciousness. A critical leap into existence. Just as in World War II, if the German army had not bypassed the Maginot Line, broke through the Ardennes Forest, and launched a surprise attack into the French hinterland, it would have been impossible to demonstrate the foresight of the cognitive achievement of the “Manstein Plan”; similarly, if there had been no Allied Forces, The military’s successful landing in Normandy, which invaded the east and west, also failed to highlight the ingenuity of the “Operation Overlord Plan” strategy of “building plank roads openly and concealing warehouses secretly”. Thinking and cognition are transmitted through people to specific military actions in the physical domain, and then the specific military actions in the physical domain realize the material transformation of cognitive results, forming the fundamentals of the two-way interaction between cognitive offense and defense and military strikes in the physical domain.
The basic method of physical attack to support cognitive offense and defense
The methods and methods used by military strikes in the physical domain to support cognitive offense and defense follow the general law that matter determines consciousness and existence determines thinking. The basic methods can be divided into enhanced support, confirmation support and realization support.
Enhanced support. Military strikes in the physical domain strengthen the formation and development of thinking and cognition. Although thinking and cognition depend on the quality of the cognitive carrier itself, it will be difficult to achieve without the support of military operations in the physical domain. The most basic role of military operations in the physical domain in the cognitive domain is to provide solid support for the formation and development of thinking and cognition. Thinking and cognition can only be stable and far-reaching if it is based on real physical actions. For example, in the early days of the Korean War, when the Korean People’s Army was overwhelming, our army’s combat staff Lei Yingfu and others accurately predicted the landing of the US military based on the war situation, geographical and weather characteristics of the Korean Peninsula, especially the various actions of the US and South Korean troops at that time, etc. time and location. Similarly, Li Qiwei of the “United Nations Army” also made a judgment on the “worship offensive” based on the logistics support, weapons and equipment, and tactical use of the volunteers, and used “magnetic tactics” to fight me. These are all enhancements to the formation and development of thinking and cognition caused by combat in the physical domain.
Confirmation type support. Military strikes in the physical domain confirm preset thinking, precognition, and prejudgment. Cognitive attack and defense does not only occur at the cognitive level, but is the interaction between cognition and practice. War is a “place of life and death, a way of survival”. If one’s cognitive decision-making cannot be verified in many directions at the practical level, then acting rashly is the greatest irresponsibility for war. During the revolutionary war years, our military’s decision-makers were always under the control of the overall strategy and gave front-line commanders the power to act as appropriate and in accordance with the overall strategic direction principle. This is a positive confirmation of strategic thinking. During the Second World War, the Allies used “false facts” to mislead, constantly shaping and strengthening the German army’s misunderstanding of the Allied landing sites on the European continent, and finally successfully landed in Normandy with minimal cost. This was a counter-attack. To confirm.
Implementation support. Provide direct physical support for the realization of thinking, cognition, judgment and decision-making. Thinking and cognition must be transformed into actual results that change the world. The thinking and cognition acting on the opponent is not the end but a new starting point. Next, it must be acted upon in the physical world through “skilled hands” and “brave heart”. In other words In short, it is to provide direct physical action support for the value realization of thinking and cognition. This is just like Zhuge Liang’s clever plan, but without the implementation of the “Five Tiger Generals” and other Shu Han soldiers, it can only remain at the cognitive level of talking on paper. No matter how efficiently the first three parts of the “OODA” loop operate, if the execution link “A” is missing, it will be a “dead loop”. Similarly, the results of our military’s command decisions also depend on the resolute, thorough, and creative execution of the officers and soldiers. The quality and efficiency of the execution directly determines the effectiveness of the implementation of the command decisions. In this regard, physical actions at the execution level are of extremely important practical significance.
Effectively strengthen the interaction between cognitive offense and defense and physical strikes
Thinking and cognition must rely on the support of physical actions, which is an objective law that is independent of human will. It is an extremely important task to strengthen the communication and interaction between thinking and cognition and physical strikes to make our thinking and decision-making more targeted, objective and operable, so as to better transform cognitive advantages into action advantages and winning advantages. .
Be more proactive and solidify your cognitive foundation. Whether the thinking and cognition is correct depends fundamentally on its compatibility with objective reality and its applicability to combat opponents. Only thinking and cognition based on full investigation and research, seeking truth from facts and comparative advantages can stand the test of practice and actual combat. The practice of absolute, sacred, and nihilistic thinking or generals’ genius, wisdom, and inspiration is idealistic, one-sided, and harmful. This requires that we must work hard to base our thinking and cognition on the basis of extensive investigation, research and intelligence analysis, and truly understand the enemy’s situation, our situation, and other people’s situations, truly know our enemies and ourselves, know everything we should know, and adapt to local conditions. The camera moves. At the same time, we must combine reading books without words with books with words, unify indirect theory with living practice that is constantly developing and changing, and dialectically recognize past experiences and lessons and other people’s experiences and lessons, so that they become our own knowledge. Help instead of shackles, assist instead of dominate.
Be more proactive and strengthen cognitive rationality. Correct understanding that can withstand the long-term test of practice and actual combat comes from practice and is strengthened through feedback from practice. Cognitive practical experience is only the basic material for obtaining correct cognition. To form scientific cognition, we need to further eliminate the false and preserve the true in the repeated collision and verification of consciousness and matter, thinking and existence, in order to improve cognitive rationality. It is wrong and even fatal to think that true knowledge can be obtained once and for all from only local situations, fragmented information and individual periods of time. In the Battle of Chibi in ancient China, Cao Cao’s side only came to the understanding of conjoining warships from the common sense that iron cables can balance the shaking of the ship’s hull, but did not confirm it from the actual combat effects or consequences of concatenating warships. If you don’t know how to recreate, you will easily tie up the ship with iron ropes and tie yourself up, and ultimately end up in the disastrous defeat of “burning Red Cliff”. Times have changed, and the enemy situation on the modern battlefield is ever-changing. There has never been an unchanging cognitive practice, nor a once-and-for-all cognitive achievement. It can only strip away impurities and extract the essence from material to cognitive to material confirmation for re-cognition. , can we return to rationality.
Be more proactive in objectifying cognitive outcomes. Cognitive achievements are only the result of thinking and consciousness nurtured in cognitive carriers. Without timely and effective material transformation, it will be like walking at night wearing brocade clothes or hiding treasures in the mountains, and it will be difficult to demonstrate its own value. Thinking and cognition are based on physical actions, and ultimately rely on specific actions in the physical domain before they can be materialized and transformed into actual results that change the subjective and objective worlds. This requires us to not only consolidate the cognitive foundation and strengthen cognitive rationality, but also improve the operability of cognitive decision-making and planning as much as possible, opening the door for smoother materialization and transformation. At the same time, efforts must be made to improve the execution capabilities of decision-making and deployment executors, so that they can correctly understand the intention of decision-making, creatively adopt appropriate methods based on specific realities, and maximize the implementation of cognitive results and operational decision-making plans to the end. Be a good “ferryman” and “bridge across the river” that connects and transforms cognitive results with combat effectiveness.
From the battlefield of “bows and horses, riding and shooting, and swords and weapons” in the era of cold weapons to the three-dimensional battlefield of land, sea, and air in the era of industrialization, to the integrated battlefield covering multiple domains such as physics, information, and cognition in the era of informationization and intelligence, war One of the core logics of form evolution is to continuously enter new domains and integrate multiple domains. Cross-domain aggregation of operational effectiveness has become a basic and decisive mechanism for winning wars. In this process, the cognitive domain has increasingly become a new battlefield that penetrates and affects multi-domain operations, and a new commanding height that determines the success or failure of the war.
The cognitive domain becomes the key to seizing comprehensive control
In modern warfare, the cognitive domain has become the key to seizing comprehensive control. War practice shows that the cognitive domain has increasingly become the focus of planning modern wars and achieving multi-domain integrated linkage for victory.
Cognitive domain advantage supports multi-domain combat effectiveness doubling. In modern warfare, in the physical domain, we destroy the enemy, preserve ourselves, and compete for control of the land, sea, air, and sky; in the information domain, we block the enemy, connect ourselves, and compete for network and information control, all related to the cognitive domain. There is a profound connection between the advantage and the initiative position. In the system-versus-system game, once the opponent is suppressed in the cognitive domain and takes the initiative, it can interfere with decision-making on the key nodes of the enemy’s command chain, kill chain, and support chain, making the actions in the physical domain and information domain gain “a huge advantage”. asymmetric benefits, thereby improving the input-output ratio of combat, enhancing the speed and efficiency of local victory leading to overall victory, and reducing the subsequent constraints caused by military strikes in the economic and social life fields.
When planning and implementing multi-domain operations, attention should be paid to the role of the cognitive domain. Modern warfare is significantly complex. Elements of multi-domain operations are interconnected, impacts are transmitted in multiple directions, and risks are superimposed on each other. Every action or even a detail of a multi-domain combat operation will trigger a chain reaction in the cognitive domain at the levels of decision-making issues, military morale, public opinion concerns, social confidence, international public opinion, etc. of both the enemy and ourselves, resulting in rapid, sudden, and unexpected consequences. It affects the overall situation of the war and even creates a “butterfly storm” that changes the domestic and foreign affairs situation of the warring parties and even the long-term development trend of the country. To plan and implement operations in the physical domain and information domain, we must not only focus on shaping the situation and creating conditions in the cognitive domain, but also accurately control the direction and size of the release of effectiveness in the cognitive domain in accordance with the need to control the brain, mind, and intelligence. Dynamic changes in the number of enemy annihilations, temporary gains and losses in one city and one place, etc., are increasingly losing their significance as indicators for evaluating the direction of the war situation. The overall impact of military operations on the war situation increasingly needs to be measured from the changes in international and domestic public perceptions it triggers. and the psychological impact on specific objects to be evaluated and considered.
The material and technical conditions for the cognitive domain to trigger integrated linkage of multiple domains are becoming increasingly mature. The rapid development of information-based intelligent cognitive perception technology has rapidly developed the game confrontation in the cognitive domain from absolutely “uncalculable” and “uncontrollable” to a considerable degree of “calculable” and “controllable”. Assisted decision-making by technologies such as big data and intelligent algorithms supports the deep integration of different combat forces in the cognitive domain and multi-dimensional command coordination, strengthening political, economic, diplomatic, cultural, military and other aspects of power, means and actions. The consistency and coordination bring about the operability of designing multiple domains, commanding multiple domains, and controlling multiple domains focusing on the cognitive domain. The widespread use of weapons and equipment such as drones and precision-guided bombs has also provided realistic and feasible tactical options for precision strikes through combat operations. The rapid popularization of intelligent communication technologies such as accurate portraits, intelligent distribution, social media live broadcast, robot writing, and virtual reality, as well as the cross-integrated development of neuroscience, cognitive science, and intelligent technology, have made it possible to plan and implement “X+ cognitive attack and defense” and achieve integrated Linked operations have become convenient and efficient.
The penetration of the cognitive domain affects the integrated linkage of multiple domains. It is not a simple “1+1”, but the energy of multi-domain actions is instantly concentrated in the cognitive domain, thereby continuously injecting emergent effects that are beneficial to oneself into the overall war. To this end, it is necessary to strengthen the innovative design of combat planning and implementation paths to ensure that multi-domain advantages can be achieved under the influence of cognitive domain penetration.
Use cognitive domain operational requirements to deepen understanding of multi-domain tasks. Focus on the overall national strategy, clarify operational requirements in the cognitive domain, and calculate and determine operational tasks in each domain based on this. Establish the must-hit targets and avoidable targets for fire strikes, hit targets first and hit later, hit targets openly and covertly, hit targets hard and hit lightly, etc., and focus on the effect of disintegrating the morale of the opponent’s military. When establishing the goal, timing, intensity, etc. of channel seizure, we must focus on the effectiveness of depriving the opponent of social mobilization and international communication capabilities and the effectiveness of supporting our information release and external propaganda. To establish the focus of intelligence information collection, it is necessary to focus on the ability to grasp the combat power in the cognitive domain of combat opponents, describe the characteristics of cognitive attack and defense target objects in a fine-grained manner, and dynamically grasp international and domestic public opinion and social trends of thought.
Use cognitive domain combat tasks to guide multi-domain action design. Focusing on questions such as “who, what kind of cognitive impact, and to what extent”, the cognitive domain combat tasks in different combat stages and different combat scenarios are subdivided. Based on this, what actions should be organized in each domain and what actions should be captured? Overall planning and detailed design of fighter aircraft, which forces to invest, what tactics to use, how to connect and intersect various actions, etc. The reason why the besieged troops on all sides were able to disintegrate the powerful Chu army was firstly because the Han army completed the military encirclement of the Chu army, and secondly, it used the ingenuity of capturing prisoners to sing Chu songs at night. In fact, different timing of operations, different task forces, different weapons and equipment, different choices of tactics and even different naming of operations will convey very different information, and the intensity of the generated cognitive impact will also be significantly different, which requires careful consideration and scientific Research and judge, and strive to maximize efficiency and optimize effects. When loading cognitive offensive and defensive actions for fire strikes, network offense and defense, electronic countermeasures, defensive operations, special operations and other operations, different imagination and creative thinking levels, different technical understanding, application and innovation, the final effect achieved is even more It’s like clouds and mud.
Organize multi-domain collaborative support with cognitive domain combat operations. Cognitive domain combat operations involve multiple participants and various action styles. Normally, they require coordinated support of military and firepower such as precise strikes, seizing key areas, and displaying momentum. In special cases, they also require coordinated strategic forces such as the deployment of cutting-edge weapons and equipment, and the organization of major training exercises. Guarantee requires the commander to make public statements and the media to embed reports and other specific personnel and specific combat units to coordinate the guarantee throughout the entire operation. Collaborative guarantee in terms of intelligence data, channel bandwidth, forensic information, and technical equipment is even more indispensable. To this end, it is necessary to mobilize multi-domain forces and resources in a full, real-time, systematic and precise manner, so that military warfare, mental warfare, and intellectual warfare can take advantage of each other and support each other to form a game of chess and create a combination of punches.
Pay attention to deepening the conceptual understanding of cognitive domain penetration and impact on multiple domains
Establishing the role of the cognitive domain in penetrating and influencing multi-domain actions and promoting integrated linkage to win is a deep-seated conceptual revolution that requires strengthening various supporting constructions to create conditions and lay the foundation.
Strengthen institutional guarantees. Using cognitive domain penetration to influence multi-domain integrated linkage operations puts forward higher requirements for cross-department and cross-agency collaboration. It is necessary to form a scientific and efficient command link that supports cognitive domain penetration to influence multi-domain and multi-domain integrated linkage. It is necessary to clarify the cognitive domain operational responsibilities of each element of the joint operations command organization, optimize and reorganize the command process, and ensure that the penetration and influence of the cognitive domain are reflected in operational determination, mission planning, and action design. Focusing on cross-domain integrated linkage, establish and improve working systems and collaboration mechanisms at strategic, operational, tactical and other levels, strengthen the mutual support of cognitive domain operations, physical domain operations, and information domain operations, and fully consider military strength and local related functions. The effective cooperation of departments and professional forces transforms comprehensive advantages into cognitive domain capabilities that penetrate, influence, and empower multiple domains.
Improve the commander’s ability and quality. The foreign military believes that qualified commanders in modern warfare need to be good at “quickly transforming proactive kinetic energy operations into more subtle cultural wars” and should have “unique intuition” and “comprehensive leadership capabilities” in this regard. In order to realize the integrated linkage of cognitive domain penetration and influence on multiple domains in war practice, we first need to strengthen the awareness of cognitive domain operations in the minds of commanders at all levels, and strengthen the formation of a conscious initiative to use cognitive domain penetration to influence multi-domain mission planning and action design. nature, strengthen and improve the ability to implement high-efficiency cognitive attack and defense using military firepower operations and information control as means. Multi-domain coordinated command under the influence of cognitive domain penetration should be regarded as an important part of strategic battle drills, highlighting the ability of commanders to command and control multiple domains with a focus on cognitive shaping, and promote the training field to continue to be closer to winning political and military The actual requirements of the war.
Promote the updating and improvement of joint cultural concepts. Cognitive domain penetration affects multi-domain integrated joint operations, which are the sublimation and optimization of joint operations concepts and mechanisms. In particular, it requires the support and guarantee of joint culture construction that is suitable for it. On the one hand, we must strive to break the influence of traditional war thinking, break down some traditional conceptual barriers, and make cognitive guidance, multi-domain integration, and joint operations the forefront of joint cultural construction and focus on updating concepts. On the other hand, it is necessary to strengthen the construction of the theoretical system of cognitive domain penetration affecting multi-domain integrated joint operations, carry out in-depth research on the winning mechanism of cognitive domain operations and innovation of tactics, and lay a solid ideological foundation with theoretical accumulation.
(Author’s unit: School of Political Science, National Defense University)
Cognitive domain operations take people’s will, beliefs, thinking, psychology, etc. as direct combat objects, and then affect their decision-making and actions by changing the opponent’s cognition. Entering the era of information-based and intelligent warfare, cognitive domain warfare has become an important form of great power competition, with all parties trying to achieve political goals in a relatively controllable manner. Gaining insight into the characteristics and development trends of cognitive domain operations is of urgent and important practical significance for winning future wars.
At present, the cognitive domain has entered the war stage as an independent domain, and has increasingly become a common domain, a battleground, and a weight for victory in the game between great powers. Analyzing the operational characteristics and development trends in the cognitive domain reflects at least the following eight aspects.
The cognitive domain is the key domain for transforming military advantage into political victory.
Military confrontation, on the surface, seems to be a confrontation between the hard power of both sides, but on a deeper level, no matter what the nature and purpose of the war, it is ultimately a contest of human wills. The key to victory is the ability to impose your will on your audience. As long as the enemy’s will to fight is deprived and defeated, the war is won. Cognitive domain warfare uses human will, spirit, psychology, etc. as the target of confrontation, strengthening one’s own will while weakening the enemy’s will, thereby achieving the political goal of conquering the heart and mind. In this sense, the cognitive domain is a key area for transforming military advantage into political victory. As the form of war accelerates to evolve towards intelligence, cognitive quality advantages bring decision-making and action advantages, which can not only occupy the commanding heights in morality and legal principles, create a favorable situation of justice and legality, but also achieve small-scale control through hybrid warfare and comprehensive game means. The purpose of fighting or even winning without fighting. Especially in the context of great power competition, the cost of war is high. All parties hope to increase the intensity of competition for cognitive domains and force their opponents to retreat in a “humane” and “economic” manner.
By changing the opponent’s perception, it can change its decisions and actions
The purpose of implementing cognitive attacks is to use an “invisible hand” to control the opponent’s will, making the opponent feel “I can’t” and “I dare not”, thereby achieving the effect of “I don’t want to”. Foreign military practice has shown that cognitive attacks on people’s will, beliefs, thinking, and psychology can be long-term cultural implantation, information suppression in the form of “information ocean + covering one’s mouth to silence”, or preemptive speech. It can also take the initiative to shape and use historical grievances to provoke the outbreak of conflicts. At present, information technology, artificial intelligence technology, and media technology have strengthened their direct effects on the cognitive domain. Using intelligence to generate software, a large amount of cognitive “ammunition” can be created to accurately act on the cognitive layer of combat targets, directly imposing “will” to rivals” and quickly change the strategic situation. Looking forward to the information-based smart battlefield, situational awareness forces and platforms are widely distributed in combat domains such as land, sea, air, and space networks. Cognitive behaviors such as planning, decision-making, and control dominate operations in each combat domain, especially the cognition of human-machine hybrids in future intelligent warfare. Advantages will dominate the battlefield. Cognitive interference, cognitive confusion, cognitive blocking and other means can be used to create a “fog” of war cognition, inducing opponents to misjudge the situation and make wrong decisions and actions.
Cognitive domain operations are full-time offense and defense, full personnel coverage, full use, full domain shaping, and full government action
Cognitive domain operations are all-round, multi-level, hyper-temporal and cross-domain, blurring the boundaries between wartime and peacetime, front and rear, crossing battlefields and national boundaries, transcending the pure military field, and widely penetrating into politics , economy, diplomacy and other social fields, showing the characteristics of “five completes”. Full-time offense and defense, there is no distinction between peacetime and wartime, and there is no difference between the front and the rear. It is expressed as being online all the time and in war all the time. Covering all personnel, anyone, including intelligent robots, may become the target of cognitive domain operations. It is used throughout the whole process of joint operations before and during the war. Before the joint military operation is launched, the cognitive shaping operation has begun and will accompany the military operation and will not stop with the military operation. Global shaping, cognitive shaping runs through all levels of strategy, operations, and tactics, and its scope covers all domains of land, sea, air, and space networks. Cross-domain empowerment has an impact on all-domain operations. As a whole-of-government action, cognitive shaping is naturally strategic and requires consistent and coordinated actions across departments, fields, military and military areas, and levels to achieve the best communication effect.
The key lies in seizing the right to define the nature of the action or activity, the right to dominate the process, and the right to judge the outcome.
The struggle in the cognitive game involves multiple opposing parties and seems complicated. The key lies in the struggle around the “three powers” in the cognitive domain. First, fight for the right to define the nature of the event. That is, how to view this incident, whether it is just or unjust, legal or illegal. Usually, preemptive definitions are adopted, group alliances are formed to force definitions, information is suppressed and unilateral definitions are used, and issues are set and applied to definitions, etc., to guide and shape the public to form qualitative perceptions. Second, compete for dominance over the event process. That is, how to do something, how not to do it, who did it right and who did it wrong, usually by setting up a trap and other methods, trying to dominate the development direction of the target event according to the state that one’s own side expects. Fast and slow, pause, continue and end. Third, compete for the right to judge the outcome of the incident. That is, how to evaluate this matter, who is the gainer and who is the loser, who is the immediate loser, who is the long-term loser, etc. All parties try to control the outcome of the incident by amplifying the advantages to themselves and the disadvantages to the enemy. The purpose is to use the extended effect of the incident to continue to hurt the enemy and benefit themselves.
Morality and legal principles are the focus of contention between all parties
Military operations have always paid attention to the principle of “discipline and reputation”. Although the shape of war is evolving at an accelerated pace, the essential nature of war as subordinate to politics will not change; the nature of war and the support of people’s hearts are still the key factors that affect the outcome of a war. On the battlefield in the cognitive domain, by occupying the commanding heights of politics, morality, and law, we can win the hearts and minds of the people and moral support, create a public opinion atmosphere in which moral support is abundant, and then seize the opportunity to defeat the enemy. In every war or conflict, whether it is the strong or the weak, the attacker, the defender, or a third party, all parties will try their best to seize cognitive dominance and the initiative of public opinion. They will do everything they can to wrap themselves up with morality, focus on declaring a just position, and try to find ways to defend themselves. Qualify the war, justify the action, eliminate resistance, increase support, and create a favorable situation in which “righteous” fights “unjust”. The strength balance between the two sides in the war is different, and the cognitive confrontation methods aimed at occupying the moral and legal high ground will also be different. Recent wars have shown that when a party has strong soft and hard power, that is, it has strong military strength, many allies and partners, and a large share of international voice, it often declares war in a high-profile manner; when military actions may trigger chain reactions, it is often handled in a vague manner. The word “war”.
Information is the basic “ammunition” for cognitive attack and defense
In the Internet information age, human communication methods continue to undergo complex and profound changes. On-site interactions have gradually given way to online connections. Some large-scale social platforms have become the main battleground for the cognitive game and the main channel to influence public cognition. Information is used as ammunition to compete for international network blockade rights and discourse control rights. Becoming one of the main actions in today’s cognitive confrontation. On these platforms, various short videos have become the “first scene” for the public to understand the war situation, and information travels faster than artillery shells. The use and blocking, dominance and regulation of platforms have become the focus of battles in the cognitive domain. All parties strive to spread and amplify their own propaganda, denounce and suppress the other party’s propaganda by manipulating social platforms, forming a “I say more, you say more” There is a situation of “less”, “what I said is right and what you said is wrong” and “only I can say it and you are not allowed to say it”. As users of large-scale social platforms, the public is influenced by and influenced by others in the process of “listening”, “speaking” and even “acting”, and unknowingly becomes the agents and attack props of those behind the scenes.
Military operations play a key supporting role in shaping cognition
The history of human war shows that military warfare is always the basic support of political contests, while psychological warfare is the effectiveness multiplier of military warfare. What cannot be retrieved on the battlefield cannot be expected to be retrieved at the negotiation table, let alone in the field of public opinion. In modern warfare, cognitive communication operations always go hand in hand with joint military operations. Mental warfare and military warfare influence and support each other. The trend of military warfare becoming mental warfare and mental warfare becoming military warfare is more obvious. From the perspective of war practice, it is absolutely impossible without military strength, but military actions alone are not omnipotent. Multiple victories on the battlefield are not a sufficient condition for victory in war. During the Vietnam War, although the United States “won every battle, it lost the entire war.” At the beginning of the 21st century, the United States fought successive wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, winning battlefield victories but not political victory. By the same token, military victory does not mean winning public opinion, and winning the battlefield does not mean winning strategic victory. In modern warfare, two types of people play an increasingly important role: those who win by writing thousands of lines of code, and those who win by writing thousands of pieces of information. The side with superior numbers and quality of these two types of personnel often has a greater chance of winning.
Cognitive countermeasures technology is increasingly used directly in warfare
In past wars, the impact and effect on the cognitive domain was mainly transmitted to the cognitive domain level by level through a large number of damaging actions in the physical domain. With the development and breakthroughs in information communications, artificial intelligence, bio-crossover, brain science and other technologies, new cognitive warfare tools and technologies are directly aimed at military personnel. Cognitive countermeasures not only use traditional information warfare weapons, but also use a neural arsenal that targets the brain. By then, machines will be able to read human brains, and human brains will also be able to directly control machines. Intelligent command and control systems can directly provide battlefield situation and decision-making assistance. Realistic cognitive ammunition and precise audience placement will greatly enhance the social impact. Cognitive countermeasures technology is increasingly being used directly in warfare. The indirect cognition implicit in informatization is gradually transforming into a direct influence and control of people’s cognition. It can be said that with the support of advanced technology, cognitive domain operations can achieve political goals more directly and efficiently by constructing modern network architecture and developing data visualization platforms to quickly understand the information environment and effectively influence target groups.
Cognitive domain operations take people’s will, beliefs, thinking, psychology, etc. as direct combat objects, and then affect their decisions and actions by changing the opponent’s cognition. Entering the era of information-based and intelligent warfare, cognitive domain warfare has become an important form of great power game, with all parties striving to achieve political goals in a relatively controllable manner. Gaining insight into the characteristics and development trends of cognitive domain operations is of urgent and important practical significance for winning future wars.
At present, the cognitive domain has entered the war stage as an independent domain, and has increasingly become a common domain, a battleground, and a weight for victory in the game between great powers. Analyze the characteristics and development trends of cognitive domain operations, which are reflected in at least the following eight aspects.
The cognitive domain is the key domain for transforming military advantage into political victory.
On the surface, military confrontation is a confrontation between the hard power of both sides. On a deeper level, no matter what the nature of the war is and for what purpose, it is ultimately a contest of human wills. The key to victory is the ability to impose your will on your audience. As long as the enemy’s will to fight is deprived and defeated, the war is won. Cognitive domain warfare uses human will, spirit, psychology, etc. as the target of confrontation, strengthening one’s own will while weakening the enemy’s will, thereby achieving the political goal of conquering the heart and mind. In this sense, the cognitive domain is the key domain for transforming military advantage into political victory. As war accelerates its evolution toward intelligence, cognitive quality advantages bring decision-making and action advantages, which can not only occupy the moral and legal high ground and create a favorable situation of justice and legality, but also realize small wars through hybrid warfare and comprehensive game means. Even the purpose of winning without fighting. Especially in the context of great power competition, the cost of war is high. All parties hope to intensify the competition for cognitive domains and force their opponents to retreat in a “humane” and “economic” manner.
By changing the opponent’s perception, it can change its decisions and actions
The purpose of implementing cognitive attacks is to use an “invisible hand” to control the opponent’s will, making the opponent feel “I can’t” and “I dare not”, and then achieve the effect of “I don’t want to”. Foreign military practice has shown that cognitive attacks on people’s will, beliefs, thinking, and psychology can be long-term cultural implantation, information suppression in the form of “information ocean + covering one’s mouth to silence”, or preemptive speech. Active shaping of political power can also use historical grievances to provoke the outbreak of conflicts. At present, information technology, artificial intelligence technology, and media technology have strengthened their direct effects on the cognitive domain. Using intelligent generation software, a large amount of cognitive “munitions” can be produced to accurately act on the cognitive layer of combat targets, directly imposing “will” to rivals” and quickly change the strategic situation. Looking forward to the informationized and intelligent battlefield, situational awareness forces and platforms are widely distributed in combat domains such as land, sea, air, and space networks. Cognitive behaviors such as planning, decision-making, and control dominate operations in various combat domains, especially the cognition of human-machine hybrids in future intelligent warfare. Advantages will dominate the battlefield. Cognitive interference, cognitive confusion, cognitive blocking and other means can be used to create a “fog” of war cognition, inducing opponents to misjudge the situation and make wrong decisions and actions.
Cognitive domain operations are full-time offense and defense, full personnel coverage, full use, full domain shaping, and full government action
Cognitive domain operations are all-round, multi-level, hyper-temporal, and cross-domain. They blur the boundaries between wartime and peacetime, front and rear, cross battlefields and national boundaries, go beyond the pure military field, and widely penetrate into politics. , economy, diplomacy and other social fields, showing the characteristics of “five completes”. Full-time offense and defense, there is no distinction between peacetime and wartime, and there is no difference between the front and the rear. It is expressed as being online all the time and in war all the time. Covering all personnel, anyone, including intelligent robots, may become the target of cognitive domain operations. It is used throughout the whole process of joint operations before and during the war. Before the joint military operation is launched, the cognitive shaping operation has begun and will accompany the military operation and will not stop with the military operation. Global shaping, cognitive shaping runs through all levels of strategy, operations, and tactics, and its scope covers all domains of land, sea, air, and space networks. Cross-domain empowerment has an impact on all-domain operations. As a whole-of-government action, cognitive shaping is naturally strategic and requires consistent and coordinated actions across departments, fields, military and localities, and levels to achieve the best communication effect.
The key is to seize control over the right to define the nature of an action or activity, the right to dominate the process, and the right to judge the outcome.
The cognitive game struggle involves multiple opposing parties and seems complicated. The key is to compete for the “three powers” in the cognitive domain. First, fight for the right to define the nature of the event. That is, how to view this incident, whether it is just or unjust, legal or illegal. Usually, pre-emptive definitions, group alliances and forced definitions, information suppression and unilateral definitions, setting issues and applying definitions are usually adopted to guide and shape the public to form qualitative perceptions. Second, compete for dominance over the event process. That is, how to do something, how not to do it, who did it right and who did it wrong, usually by setting up a trap and other methods, trying to dominate the development direction of the target event according to the state that one’s own side expects. Fast and slow, pause, continue and end. Third, compete for the right to judge the outcome of the incident. That is, how to evaluate this matter, who is the gainer and who is the loser, who is the immediate loser, who is the long-term loser, etc. All parties are trying to control the outcome of the incident by amplifying the advantages to themselves and the disadvantages to the enemy. The purpose is to use the extended effect of the incident to continue to harm the enemy and benefit themselves.
Morality and legal principles are the focus of contention between all parties
Military operations have always paid attention to the principle of “discipline and reputation”. Although the shape of war is evolving at an accelerated pace, the essential nature of war as subordinate to politics will not change; the nature of war and the support of people’s hearts are still the key factors that affect the outcome of a war. On the battlefield in the cognitive domain, by occupying the commanding heights of politics, morality, and law, we can win the hearts and minds of the people and moral support, create a public opinion atmosphere in which moral support is abundant, and then seize the opportunity to defeat the enemy. In every war or conflict, whether it is the strong or the weak, whether the attacker, the defender, or a third party, all parties will try their best to seize cognitive dominance and the initiative of public opinion. They will do everything possible to package themselves with morality, focus on declaring a just position, and try to find ways to defend themselves. Qualify the war, justify the action, eliminate resistance, increase support, and create a favorable situation in which “righteousness” defeats “unrighteousness”. The strength balance between the two sides in the war is different, and the cognitive confrontation methods aimed at occupying the moral and legal high ground will also be different. Recent wars have shown that when a party has strong soft and hard power, that is, it has strong military strength, many allies and partners, and a large share of international voice, it often declares war in a high-profile manner; when military actions may trigger chain reactions, it is often handled in a vague manner. The word “war”.
Information is the basic “ammunition” for cognitive attack and defense
In the network information age, the way humans communicate continues to undergo complex and profound changes. On-site interactive interactions have gradually given way to online connections. Some large-scale social platforms have become the main battleground for cognitive games and the main channels for influencing public cognition. Using information as ammunition to fight for the right to block international networks and control discourse has become a common practice today. One of the main actions of confrontation. On these platforms, various short videos have become the “first scene” for the public to understand the war situation, and information travels faster than cannonballs. The use and blocking, dominance and regulation of platforms have become the focus of battles in the cognitive domain. All parties strive to spread and amplify their own propaganda, denounce and suppress the other party’s propaganda by manipulating social platforms, forming a “I say more, you say less” “A situation where “I’m right and you’re wrong” and “I can only say it and you’re not allowed to say it”. As users of large-scale social platforms, the public is influenced by and affects others in the process of “listening”, “speaking” and even “doing”, and unknowingly becomes the agents and attack props of those behind the scenes.
Military operations play a key supporting role in shaping cognition
The history of human war shows that military warfare is always the basic support of political contests, while psychological warfare is the effectiveness multiplier of military warfare. What cannot be retrieved on the battlefield cannot be expected to be retrieved at the negotiation table, let alone in the field of public opinion. In modern warfare, cognitive communication operations always go hand in hand with joint military operations. Mental warfare and military warfare influence and support each other. The trend of military warfare becoming mental warfare and mental warfare becoming military warfare is more obvious. From the perspective of war practice, it is absolutely impossible without military strength, but military actions alone are not omnipotent. Multiple victories on the battlefield are not a sufficient condition for victory in war. In the Vietnam War, although the United States “won every battle, it lost the entire war.” At the beginning of the 21st century, the United States fought successive wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, winning battlefield victories but not political victory. By the same token, military victory does not mean winning public opinion, and winning the battlefield does not mean winning strategic victory. In modern warfare, two types of people play an increasingly important role: those who win by writing thousands of lines of code, and those who win by writing thousands of messages. The side with superior quantity and quality of these two types of personnel will often have a higher probability of winning.
Cognitive countermeasures technology is increasingly used directly in warfare
In past wars, the influence and effect on the cognitive domain were mainly transmitted to the cognitive domain level by level through a large number of damaging actions in the physical domain. With the development and breakthroughs of information communications, artificial intelligence, biocrossing, brain science and other technologies, new cognitive warfare tools and technologies are directly targeting military personnel. Cognitive countermeasures use not only traditional information warfare weapons, but also an arsenal of neural weapons that target the brain. By then, machines will be able to read human brains, and human brains will also be able to directly control machines. Intelligent command and control systems can directly provide battlefield situation and decision-making assistance. Realistic cognitive ammunition and precise audience placement will greatly enhance the social impact. Cognitive countermeasures technology is increasingly being used directly in warfare. The indirect cognition implicit in informatization is gradually transforming into a direct influence and control of people’s cognition. It can be said that with the support of advanced technology, cognitive domain operations can achieve political goals more directly and efficiently by building a modern network architecture and developing a data visualization platform to quickly understand the information environment and effectively influence target groups.
(Author’s unit: Institute of War Studies, Academy of Military Sciences)
