The Unacknowledged Failure of Deterrence - Losing the Cognitive War

 

The Unacknowledged Failure of Deterrence

Losing the Cognitive War

 

In late January 2024, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta testified before Congress on the threats from China. Pompeo and Panetta both indicated a need to “deter” China.

 

The reason I mention the two men is to highlight a common misperception. First, note that they come from two different political parties. Second, they were both former Directors of the CIA. Third, they share a joint belief that deterrence will work against China or other adversaries. And finally, what they both fail to realize is that traditional deterrence, less nuclear, no longer works in this ongoing Cognitive War.

 

I define Cognitive War as - A primarily an ideological war, between tyranny and freedom, control and independence, subjugation, and democracy. It is a war fought primarily in the cognitive domain using strategies which apply various ways (e.g., ideology, religion, issues) and means (e.g., academic, economic, agriculture, social, military, etc.) to influence. In its most basic form, it is a war between good and evil. Cognitive war can and does include irregular warfare and kinetics. It is a war that has been ongoing for more than a millennium. It is timeless as mankind exists. Cognitive war is truly the existential threat that is global and domestic. In today’s U.S.A, few understand it, can defend against it, can compete in it, or win it. It can be won, but not if we are unwilling to change. Edward L. Haugland, August 2023, The Cognitive War – Why We Are Losing and How We can Win[1]

 

Deterrence is defined by Oxford English Dictionary as:

 

“Deterring or preventing by fear. spec., the reduction of the likelihood of war by the fear that nuclear weapons will be used against an aggressor.” https://www.oed.com/search/dictionary/?scope=Entries&q=deterrence

 

Deterrence is an industrial age concept, relic, and less nuclear focused, a failure. Yes, a failure! If our leaders understood this, there would be no cause for alarm. Unfortunately, as we heard from the two Secretary’s testimony, their belief that deterrence works is reflective and shared by a majority of our members of Congress, Executive branch, and our national security leaders. Hence, there is a great reason to be alarmed. Why?

 

When our leaders fail to realize something no longer works, yet persist in actions that believe it does, then we place ourselves in grave danger. It also means they fail to understand or acknowledge the reality that the environment has changed. We must also then acknowledge that they concurrently fail to understand the real threat. We saw this type of cognitive dissonance play out for twenty-years in Afghanistan.

 

We are in an ongoing Cognitive War, for which our leadership remains unaware, unarmed, and unprepared. We therefore are at our greatest risk, not because we don’t have kinetic capabilities and military, but because the cognitive dissonance of our leaders belies understanding that the real threat is a war that is already being waged by our adversaries. It is a war that they fail to acknowledge, understand, prepare for, and therefore fail to advance capabilities, capacity, or expertise to compete in the war. Given this dilemma, we must also acknowledge that unless this changes, our chances of winning decline by orders of magnitude. And the chances of subversion from within and externally by our adversaries grow daily. Our kinetic capabilities and military might will matter little as deterrence fails in an all-out cognitive war.

 

Let me ask, did we deter the Soviet Union from invading all of Europe? I contend one could argue that we did not. After all the Soviets had their hands full with the subjugation of their satellite states, the costs required to sustain their military and the Potemkin village economics of a socialist regime. They no doubt understood that an actual ground invasion by the Soviet army into the West would be too costly and lead to major issues in holding the USSR satellites together. As from the beginning of the USSR, a strong undertow of dissent ran across Eastern Europe.

 

We must also not forget that the Soviets were successful in subjugating Eastern Europe using Cognitive Warfare, not a military takeover. They did so via subversive tactics that slowly but surely allowed their comrades to infiltrate, subjugate, and dominate the key levers of power and then elevate their lemmings in power. They did so by undermining and subverting the key levers of power including the justice system, the police, and national security elements. Sound familiar to what we’re seeing in the USA today?

 

Yes, we must acknowledge the Soviets did use their military to squash some instances of rebellion, aka Czechoslovakia. But it was subversion, using Cognitive Warfare, that led to their primary success, and sustainment of power for seven plus decades.

 

Yes, the demise of the USSR was aided by having a nuclear umbrella – nuclear deterrence - that precluded nuclear blackmail. But the fall of the USSR was achieved primarily using offense Cognitive Warfare by the western free world in the form of strategic messaging, aided by economics, with the nail in the coffin being the inability of a bankrupt dystopian system of subjugation known as communism to sustain the tyranny of the Potemkin Village called the USSR. Those Cognitive Warfare capabilities, capacity, and understanding were thrown into the waste bin as part of our ignorance as we wrongly celebrated the end of the Cold War and foolishly took the so-called peace dividend. Few realized that the Cold War was but one battle in the endless Cognitive War.

 

China learned from the Cold War, our Gulf War kinetic successes, but also from the utter failure of the USA in conflicts from Vietnam to Afghanistan. In fact, every war since WWII (less Korean a stalemate) was a failure – as we never won the Cognitive War. Our Chinese adversaries studied, assessed, and learned from our actions and mistakes and authored a book on Unrestricted Warfare[2], which in short speaks to a subversive, primarily cognitive effort, using indirect and irregular means to destroy and defeat adversaries. They have been implementing Unrestricted Warfare, aka Cognitive Warfare, ever since – meaning for over a quarter of a century. All why our IC, DOD, and national security are just writing basic concepts and doctrine, very basic.

 

Now, why has deterrence failed? Because China and other adversaries have already declared war on the USA. They have been very open about this, and very open about advancing the use of Cognitive Warfare. Cognitive Warfare ignores deterrence, and goes around it, to slowly but surely affect desired outcomes and impacts that undermine the USA and free countries worldwide. China has exported their unrestricted warfare to our other adversaries. Hence, traditional deterrence no longer applies. Our adversaries work in the seams, using our own laws and ineptitude to subvert our nation. We’ve seen the same with Russia and its two invasions of Ukraine. Iran does so without consequence, as it uses various proxies to deliver multiple attacks against US forces. And on our own southern border, we have seen how our adversaries use our open borders to insert tens of thousands of insurgents – whether drug cartel members, gang members, terrorists, or Chinese special operatives.

 

How does one deter when we see our adversaries openly influencing the minds, behaviors, actions, and events of the world to our detriment? How does one deter when our leaders and national security elements do not even acknowledge the ongoing Cognitive War, nor understand its tactics or techniques? They fail to understand this war, and therefore have little to no means to counter or compete in it –as such traditional deterrence no longer has meaning.

 

A few examples may help to reinforce this perspective. China unleashed and got away with the murder of over one-million US citizens (several-million world-wide) with the China Flu (aka Covid 19). China continues to murder of over 100,000 Americans yearly from fentanyl, and after four years killing more Americans than died in WWII. China continues an illegal invasion, sending in 40-70,000 military aged men across our open borders, and the numbers are accelerating. China also infiltrates our academic world with about 300,000 students per year (while the USA sends around two hundred per year to China) – while concurrently inserting them into key areas of science, technology, engineering, and math. China continues to drive propaganda and subversion of our political and military leaders, educators, scientists, and children using various ways and means (e.g., Confucius institutes, Chinese police stations on US soil, via TikTok and WeChat, stealing OPM and other data). Where can we point to success in deterrence? We cannot!

 

We can only point to the obvious losses in this ongoing Cognitive War, and wonder if, or when, our leaders in Congress, the Executive Branch, or national security will every wakeup, understand, or take action before the USA falls prey to the refined tactics of subversion used by Soviets to subjugate Eastern Europe, now honed by China’s CCP using unrestricted warfare, to successfully subvert our justice, military, police, education systems to advance the decay of our society from within.

 

We remain stuck in the industrial age, with industrial age mind set, processes, and structures while our adversaries like China have moved into the information age, and are slowly but surely effectively subverting our society, laws, and freedoms. All of this achieved without ever firing one shot. So, tell me now, how again does deterrence succeed?

 

Edward L. Haugland, © 2024, all rights reserved.

 

 

---

[1] I wrote a book on this The Cognitive War: Why We Are Losing and How We can Win to inform, explain how the war is conducted, detail its operations, and provide solutions to win.

 

[2] Unrestricted Warfare, Qiao Liang and Wang Xiangsui, Beijing: PLA Literature and Arts Publishing House, February 1999