The Cognitive Domain - and Cognitive Warfare and Cognitive Dissonance
The Cognitive Domain, the Cognitive War and Cognitive
Dissonance
We have all seen or are
all familiar with varied aspects of kinetic war, large and small, irregular and
asymmetric. Thankfully, the majority
hasn’t had to directly participate in the actual kinetic part – but that’s a
different issue you’ve seen me write about regarding the need for a wholly new
form of conscription in this country.
We must begin to think
differently about war, its definition, and about what type of war we are fighting. As with anything ground into history,
changing such definitions does not come easily, but we must.
The major war, ongoing
now for millennium plus, but never fully recognized in most literature or
doctrine, is and will always be in the cognitive domain. Cognitive War is the battle of ideas and
ideology, and requires a substantially different approach – and set of
intelligence and foundation data than kinetic action. BUT – this is a big but –
the information that is necessary to conduct cognitive maneuver and warfare in
the cognitive domain – provides an incredibly advanced foundation for far more
effective kinetic operations. While not
directly, the great strategist Sun Tzu hints at this in the following
statement.
“The general who wins a battle makes
calculations in his temple before the battle is fought. The general who loses a battles makes but few
calculations beforehand. Thus do many calculations lead to victory, and few
calculations to defeat...it is by attention to this point that I can forsee who
is likely to win or lose.” (p. 11, The Art of War: Sun Tzu., edited and
with forward by James Clavell, Delacorte Press, NY, © 1983)
But we are wedded to
past actions and history, culture and policies, which now must be revisited in
whole – less we perpetuate the conception that war is and remains solely a set
of kinetic actions. Our industrial age
set of processes, policies, functions, technology, definition and tools need an
update so our battles in the Cognitive Domain can move past the cognitive dissonance
we’re experiencing currently in trying to figure out how to address the issues
in Afghanistan, China, Russia, Iran, etc.
First, the recent open
letter by two stellar generals – offers a perspective on how to adjust the
kinetic fight to win in Afghanistan. But to me, and I’m likely to get some
arrows here on this one, is a perfect exemplar of the cognitive dissonance we’re
experiencing – as related to the Cognitive Domain, Warfare and Maneuver.
LTG
William G. Boykin, LTG Thomas G. McInerney, Frank J. Gaffney and Stephen B.
Young write (bold added):
“It
is time responsibly to end the loss of American lives and treasure in
Afghanistan after 18 years of hard-fought, but ultimately ineffective warfare,
while denying a victory to radical Islamic terrorists – be they the Taliban,
ISIS, Al Qaeda or others. An alternative
“Secure Afghanistan” approach would greatly reduce the U.S. footprint
in-country while both maintaining the lethality of American forces who remain
and enhancing the capacity of the Afghan people and their security forces to
defend against their Taliban and other enemies. Reduced to its essence, the Secure Afghanistan strategy would involve two proven techniques”
Their approach makes
sense, but for only one aspect of the overall war – kinetic. But the real war remains for the hearts and
minds, ideas and ideology. Whether it’s
the Taliban, ISIS, or communist China – if you are in a kinetic action – you have
not only lost much of any strategic advantage, you are now stuck in perpetual spiral
of conflict – until such time as a realization is made that the battlefield is
not tactical, not kinetic, but cognitive and of wills, ideas and ideology.
Let’s look at three definitions...
www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/war
War definition is
- a state of usually open and declared armed hostile conflict between states or
nations. How to use war in a sentence.
cognitive (kɒgnɪtɪv
), adjective [ADJECTIVE noun]
Cognitive means relating to the mental process involved in
knowing, learning, and understanding things. COBUILD Advanced English
Dictionary. Copyright © HarperCollins Publishers
www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/cognitive...
Definition of cognitive dissonance.
: psychological conflict resulting from incongruous beliefs and attitudes held
simultaneously.
The first definition is that of war, and it is
solely focused on armed conflict and hostilities. The second definition speaks
to knowing, learning and understanding – essential elements in the Cognitive
Domain. The last speaks to what we’re experiencing now – in that we see, hear
and assess actions that conflict with what we’ve been taught and
understand.
Cognitive Warfare encompasses the above, but cognitive is
then enabled further via varied tools (cyber, kinetics, cultural understanding,
financial information and data, influence operations, psychological operations,
etc. that cut across a variety of functional areas) in the conducting
operations to achieve desired outcomes. The cognitive warfare aspect is
truly in its raw form a battle of ideologies between such as communism and
democracy. Activity in the cognitive domain encompasses good and
bad.
The bottom line is
that we MUST begin to believe what we’re seeing and adjust what we know to be
ineffective and initiate a more sustained and strategic approach to warfare in
the Cognitive Domain – less we spend our treasures (people and other) stuck in
the perpetual downward spiral we find ourselves in. Kinetic action is, and will always remain, a
tool within the Cognitive Domain. But it can’t be the hammer for everything
that looks like a nail –whether it is or note.
The good news is that
we’ve done some of this before, and we have a variety of capacity and
capability in this domain – but we’re neither leveraging nor focusing those
resources on the real problem.
Edward L. Haugland, © 2019, all rights reserved.
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