"EXPERT OPINION - In order for the U.S. to successfully compete for global influence against its adversaries and to avoid a kinetic fight, we must excel at cognitive warfare; that is military activities designed to affect attitudes and behaviors. This type of warfare is a subset of irregular warfare (IW) and combines sensitive activities to include information operations, cyber, and psychological operations to meet a goal. To develop these kinds of operations, the U.S. needs intelligence professionals who are creative and experts in their field."
"U.S. focus on IW and its subset, cognitive warfare, has been erratic. The U.S. struggles with adapting its plans to the use of cognitive warfare while our leaders have consistently called for more expertise for this type of warfare. In 1962, President challenged West Point graduates to understand: "another type of war, new in its intensity, ancient in its origin, that would require a whole new kind of strategy, a wholly different kind of force, forces which are too unconventional to be called conventional forces...""
The United States must excel at cognitive warfare, a subset of irregular warfare that uses information operations, cyber, and psychological operations to shape attitudes and behaviors. Effective cognitive warfare requires creative, expert intelligence professionals and comfortable, integrated collaboration between intelligence and operations communities. Decision makers must accept risk and employ these methods to deter kinetic conflict and compete globally. Historical emphasis on irregular and cognitive warfare has been inconsistent despite repeated high-level calls for expertise, including presidential exhortations, the 1987 establishment of SOCOM and SO/LIC authorities, and later Department of Defense guidance calling for mastery comparable to conventional combat. Recent strategies continue to emphasize irregular warfare priorities.
Read at The Cipher Brief
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