Source: Liberation Army News Author: Yang Longxi Editor-in-charge: Wang Feng 2022-10-08 10:11:25
In recent years, local wars and armed conflicts are mostly “mixed” confrontations that unfold in multiple dimensions and fields, emphasizing the use of military, political, and economic means, implementing system clamps in the comprehensive decision-making dimension, creating various chaos in the international communication dimension, and carrying out targeted strikes in the strategic focus dimension, actively shaping the battlefield situation, and seeking to seize strategic initiative. In future wars, we must fight political-military battles and military-political battles, and we should deeply grasp the characteristics and laws of cognitive domain operations, offense and defense, and improve our ability to fight the “five battles”.
Cognitive warfare is the first step to shape the situation and take the initiative. Before the war begins, cognition comes first. With the continuous development and evolution of the war situation, the status and role of cognitive warfare are becoming more and more prominent. Aiming to win the future war, cognitive deployment should be carried out in advance, and through strategies, information, technology and other means and carriers, the target’s physiological, psychological, values and other cognitive elements should be influenced, intervened and manipulated, and military operations should be covered by cognitive offense and defense, so as to accurately and efficiently dominate the cognitive space. We must fully realize the importance of taking the initiative, flexibly and independently master the right to define and interpret “narrative”, emphasize taking the initiative in the dimension of cognitive narrative struggle, create a favorable situation with legal principles in hand and morality on our side, and occupy the moral high ground.
Cognitive warfare is about attacking the heart, and we should fight a precise war in layers. “A good warrior will attack others but not others.” In future wars, the combat space will extend to the deep sea, deep space, deep network and other fields, and the battlefield space and time will be extremely far, extremely small, extremely intelligent, and unmanned, invisible, and silent. We should focus on cognitive gaps to improve our reach, use big data simulation, artificial intelligence matching, psychological model evaluation and other methods to analyze and control the key information of cognitive subjects, and achieve effective penetration and early deterrence of cognitive subject information. We should focus on cognitive blind spots to enhance penetration, aim at the ideological consensus points, psychological connection points, and spiritual support points that maintain the unity of the powerful enemy alliance to effectively strike, and use their cognitive differences and conflicts of interest to achieve differentiation and disintegration at all levels.
Based on cognitive combat strategy, we should fight a war of deterrence and control with full domain penetration. In future wars, the strategic competition and strategic confrontation between the warring parties will be extremely fierce. We should focus on the decision-making links and make comprehensive efforts to increase the opponent’s decision-making dilemma and form our own decision-making advantages. On the one hand, we should pay more attention to key nodes such as the enemy’s decision-making center, command hub, reconnaissance and early warning system, and use advanced strike means to physically destroy these nodes. On the other hand, we should pay more attention to the “soft kill” effect of cognitive shaping, cognitive inducement, cognitive intervention and cognitive control, and embed cognitive domain operations into “hard destruction”, so as to form a strong shock through precise strikes with high-tech weapons, and expand new-quality combat forces to the cognitive dimension, thereby forming an asymmetric balance of power.
Information is king in cognitive warfare, and we must expand the field to fight a good support war. Future wars cannot be separated from strong information support, and we should accelerate system integration to gain data advantages. First, we should accelerate the construction of cognitive offensive and defensive combat theory bases, databases, talent pools, case bases, and tactics bases, dynamically collect and update the current status of the enemy’s cognitive offensive and defensive combat capabilities, and provide all-round support for cognitive offensive and defensive operations. Secondly, we should accelerate the creation of a converged media communication matrix, improve and perfect our own platform system, and step up the deployment of network platforms, focusing on system integration and collaborative linkage, breaking through the “barriers” of information interconnection as soon as possible, and realizing cognitive integration and sharing, and comprehensive effectiveness. Thirdly, we should accelerate the coupling and linkage of information and cognitive domain operations, vigorously develop core technologies such as neural network systems, artificial intelligence applications, cognitive decision-making psychological offense and defense, explore and analyze cross-domain and heterogeneous cognitive information, and improve the information fusion system of cognitive means to provide “clairvoyance” and “clairaudience” for winning future wars.
The key to cognitive warfare is coordination, and we should make efforts in multiple dimensions to fight the overall battle. Future wars will be joint operations carried out in the fields of land, sea, air, space, network, electromagnetic, etc. We should adhere to system thinking, strengthen coordination awareness, and improve the compatibility and coordination of cognitive domain operations with other military actions. For example, we can integrate human intelligence, geographic intelligence, and open source intelligence, quickly collect and process massive data, remove the false and retain the true, and accurately and efficiently seize cognitive space, so as to achieve complementary advantages and full coverage to form cognitive advantages. By networking the dispersed multi-domain forces, we can establish a highly connected, collectively acting, and overall attacking full-domain joint force to achieve the effect of “integrated deterrence”. By integrating national resources, strengthening strategic communication, and using cognitive manipulation to amplify the effects of political disintegration, economic sanctions, and diplomatic offensives, and coordinating military operations to exert pressure on the target in all dimensions, we strive to defeat the enemy without fighting.
(Author’s unit: University of Aerospace Engineering)
War is a confrontation of material forces, but it is also a test of ideological cognition. To implement President Xi’s new requirements for comprehensively improving strategic capabilities in emerging fields, we must grasp the “bull’s nose” of scientific and technological cognition, focus on the new situation of accelerating the new round of scientific and technological revolution, industrial revolution and military revolution, focus on strengthening the army and winning wars, and strengthen the research and exploration of strategic, cutting-edge and disruptive technologies in emerging fields. With a deep understanding of the nature and laws of science and technology, we can master the realization of high-quality development of military construction, win the initiative in military competition and future wars, transform scientific and technological cognition into a real ability to design and win wars, and accelerate and win new advantages in strategic areas that must be fought.
(one)
Only by understanding the times can we understand war. In the era when scientific and technological revolutions and military revolutions are integrated and intertwined, and science and technology have become the core combat power of modern warfare, improving the scientific and technological cognition of strategic capabilities in emerging fields will help us understand and grasp the characteristics and laws of modern warfare, better control information-based and intelligent warfare, achieve overtaking in new fields and new tracks, win military competitive advantages with scientific and technological advantages, and win future high-tech wars.
Leading military reforms to seize the commanding heights. The wise hear what is silent, and the wise see what is not yet formed. Only by keenly perceiving the development trends of emerging technologies and expanding the cognitive boundaries of strategic frontier technologies can we see what is not yet born, recognize what is not yet developed, take the initiative, and lead the elements of the military field to achieve revolutionary transformation and development. In today’s era, emerging technologies represented by artificial intelligence are emerging in a “well-like” manner, leading and promoting the rapid development of military intelligence at an unprecedented speed, triggering chain breakthroughs in the military field, and leveraging fundamental changes in the war pattern. Scientific and technological innovation has always been a race of time and speed. Faced with the strong momentum of military science and technology development in emerging fields, we must strive to seize the initiative and gain advantages. We must accurately grasp the general trend of science and technology of the times, dare to stand at the forefront of human warfare and scientific and technological development, grasp the basic laws of scientific and technological development and evolution in the long river of history and the global perspective, and accurately identify new goals, new fields, and new heights for the development of military science and technology. We must find breakthroughs in the development of military science and technology in a timely manner, bravely advance into the “no man’s land” of military science and technology innovation, seize the strategic commanding heights of military technology competition, and lead the military revolution to achieve new breakthroughs and leaps with new thinking concepts.
Lead the military competition and win the initiative. The level of cognition ultimately determines the pattern of military competition. At present, the frontier positions and strength competition of world military competition have extended to emerging fields, and the acquisition of technological advantages has become a strategic measure to seek military advantages. In the fierce competition of technological subversion and counter-subversion, assault and counter-assault, offset and counter-offset, scientific and technological cognition has become a key variable that determines the victory or defeat of military games. If there is a generation gap in scientific and technological cognition, there is a risk of being surpassed by the opponent’s new technological combat power. If there is a technological gap in shaping new-quality combat power, it will be difficult to “change the rules of competition” and form a military competitive advantage. Recent local wars and armed conflicts in the world have shown that whoever has a leading strategic capability and technological cognition in emerging fields and uses technology to empower combat power can control the battlefield situation and thereby achieve a fundamental change in the winner and loser. In the increasingly fierce world military game, in order to seize the initiative in the development of military science and technology in emerging fields and occupy a favorable position of high-level control, it is necessary to enhance the scientific and technological awareness of strategic capabilities in emerging fields, keep a close eye on changes in science and technology, changes in war, and changes in opponents, plan according to the situation, act according to the situation, follow the trend, make advance arrangements, and plan ahead to ensure the formation of unique advantages in some important fields and win the initiative in military games.
Leading a strong army to win the war and win the future war. Practice determines cognition, which is the source and motivation, purpose and destination of cognition. The scientific and technological cognition of strategic capabilities in emerging fields is aimed at promoting scientific and technological innovation and application. The fundamental focus is to create a new quality combat power growth pole. The main purpose is to seize the commanding heights of strategic competition, seize the initiative in war, and ultimately win the future war. At present, the development of emerging fields is showing an all-round and multi-domain in-depth advancement trend, and the frequency of dynamic iteration and update of science and technology is accelerating. In order to forge a new quality combat capability with a new killing mechanism and improve the scientific and technological content of national defense and military modernization, we must deeply grasp the key areas of scientific and technological innovation and development in emerging fields, grasp the new characteristics of cross-integration development of scientific and technological innovation and development in emerging fields, focus on creating a new quality combat capability growth pole, vigorously promote independent innovation and original innovation, eliminate backward technologies that are not adapted to the changes in the war situation, adhere to the integrated development of mechanization, informatization and intelligence, improve the innovation and application of military science and technology, comprehensively enhance the strategic capabilities of emerging fields, and win the battle to achieve the goal of building the army for a hundred years as scheduled.
Two
Improving the scientific and technological cognition of strategic capabilities in emerging fields is a very complex process of subjective and objective rational thinking. To accurately grasp the essential attributes and characteristic laws of scientific and technological innovation and development in emerging fields, and to know both the facts and the reasons, we should focus on improving the three abilities of scientific and technological foresight, discrimination, and understanding in the strategic capabilities of emerging fields, and form a scientific cognitive ability system that supports, cooperates with, and influences each other, providing strong support for comprehensively improving the strategic capabilities of emerging fields.
Aiming at future wars, we should enhance our scientific and technological foresight. Emerging fields are one of the main battlefields of future wars. Once some technologies achieve breakthroughs, the impact will be subversive, and may even fundamentally change the form and mode of war, and fundamentally change the traditional offensive and defensive pattern of war. Science and technology have never had such a profound impact on military construction and the outcome of wars as they do today. If we have a narrow scientific and technological cognition and lack strategic foresight and prediction of cutting-edge technologies in emerging fields, we may not understand our opponents, understand wars, and even more so win future wars. During the Gulf War, Iraq’s mechanized steel torrent lost to the US military’s precision-guided weapons. One of the important reasons for this was the gap between the two countries in strategic capabilities and scientific and technological cognition in emerging fields. In order to let our thoughts reach tomorrow’s battlefield, we must improve our scientific and technological awareness, closely follow the development direction of the world’s advanced military science and technology, promptly grasp the latest developments in cutting-edge science and technology, scientifically predict the development trend of science and technology, make full use of technologies such as data mining, comprehensively judge the revolutionary impact of high-tech development on war, take the lead in laying out emerging combat fields, develop a series of high-tech weapons and equipment, accelerate the scientific and technological empowerment of combat effectiveness, and provide a solid material foundation for winning future wars.
Keep a close eye on how to defeat powerful enemies and improve scientific and technological identification. War is a life-and-death confrontation between the enemy and us, and emerging fields are the top priority for the struggle between the two sides. Improving the scientific and technological awareness of strategic capabilities in emerging fields is the fundamental strategy to prevent technological raids and avoid technological traps. In order to seize the initiative in war, powerful enemies have always not only used their unique high-tech weapons and equipment to raid their opponents, putting them in a disadvantageous situation of passive attack, but also a more dangerous trick is to carefully set up technical traps and implement strategic deception. During the Cold War, the Soviet Union fell into the strategic deception trap of the US “Star Wars Plan”, which accelerated the decline of national strength. To persist in winning against powerful enemies, we must improve the scientific and technological discernment of strategic capabilities in emerging fields, closely follow the technological frontiers of powerful enemies, formulate breakthrough strategies for building strategic capabilities in emerging fields, and maintain a high degree of technical sensitivity and discernment of some so-called new technologies and new concepts promoted by powerful enemies. We must be good at distinguishing the authenticity of technology, weighing the pros and cons of development and the extent of its impact, and persist in developing strategic resources in emerging fields based on national conditions and military conditions, so that the innovative achievements of military science and technology in emerging fields can better empower the decision-making chain, command chain and combat power generation chain.
Mastering the winning strategy improves the understanding of science and technology. The key to building a strong army and winning wars is to master the winning strategy. In the context of the deep coupling of modern science and technology with the military, understanding and mastering science and technology has become a necessary ability to understand, design and win wars. From the perspective of human military history, it is precisely because of the thorough understanding of the principles of aviation technology and space technology that Douhet’s “air supremacy” theory, Graham’s “high frontier” theory and other war theories have been produced. Similarly, if there is a lack of thorough understanding of new technologies such as human-machine collaboration, group intelligence, and autonomous control of artificial intelligence, it will be impossible to master the winning mechanism of intelligent warfare and explore new theories and tactics of intelligent warfare. Technology determines tactics. To win future wars, we must focus on thinking about wars from a scientific and technological perspective, understand the impact of emerging technological developments on wars, learn from the latest achievements in military science and technology innovation of the world’s superpowers, study and explore the internal mechanisms of high-tech in emerging fields supporting modern warfare, explore how to use scientific and technological concepts and thinking to accurately grasp the laws of winning wars, how to use advanced scientific and technological means to strengthen the construction of new-quality combat capabilities, how to design wars based on scientific and technological principles, and how to transform scientific and technological advantages into capability advantages, and use the “key” of scientific and technological thinking to open the “door” to victory.
(three)
Comprehensively improving the scientific and technological cognition of strategic capabilities in emerging fields is a long-term, systematic strategic project. We must deeply understand and implement the important instructions of Chairman Xi, take improving the scientific and technological literacy of officers and soldiers as a basic task, and improve the scientific and technological cognition of officers and soldiers with a high sense of mission, scientific thinking concepts, and effective methods and approaches, so as to lay a solid foundation for comprehensively improving strategic capabilities in emerging fields and realizing high-quality development of our army.
Accelerate the transformation of ideas and concepts. The wise change with the times, and the knowledgeable act according to circumstances. While the emerging military technology is transforming the objective world, it is also profoundly changing people’s subjective world, forming a subversive impact on the traditional war-winning mechanism and way of thinking. The internal requirement is to transform ideas and concepts and enhance scientific and technological cognition. Engels pointed out: “When the wave of technological revolution is surging around… we need newer and braver minds.” Whoever is conservative, conservative, and self-contained will miss precious opportunities, fall into strategic passivity, and even miss an entire era. We must emancipate our minds and update our concepts, actively adapt to the development trend of world military changes today, be sensitive to the innovation of military thinking brought about by the technological revolution, have the courage to change the mindset of mechanized warfare, break the shackles of conservative thinking, firmly establish a new mindset of information-based and intelligent warfare, establish a new concept of strengthening the military and winning victory through science and technology, focus on understanding the new face of war, discovering new characteristics of war, and revealing new laws of war from a scientific and technological perspective, and strive to raise the level of war cognition to a new height.
Cultivate the foundation of scientific and technological literacy. Scientific and technological literacy is the ability to scientifically understand and describe the objective world and the ability to think scientifically. The depth of the foundation of scientific and technological literacy fundamentally determines the level of scientific and technological cognition. If you don’t understand science and technology or your scientific and technological literacy is not high, you will be like looking at flowers in the fog or the moon in the water when it comes to modern warfare, let alone being able to fight and win. To improve the scientific and technological cognition of strategic capabilities in emerging fields and understand the winning mechanism of modern high-tech warfare, the key is to work hard to improve the scientific and technological literacy of officers and soldiers, coordinate the use of advantageous military and civilian scientific and technological resources, vigorously spread the scientific spirit, popularize scientific knowledge, strengthen the study of modern science and technology, especially military science and technology knowledge, and conduct in-depth research on cutting-edge technologies such as artificial intelligence, big data, blockchain, and quantum technology. We must have a deep understanding of the new features of artificial intelligence such as deep learning, cross-border integration, human-machine collaboration, group intelligence, and autonomous control. We must understand and master the latest scientific and technological achievements, build a multi-dimensional knowledge system with information and intelligent technology as the main body, improve the level of thinking, expand the knowledge structure, and vigorously promote the transformation of the “variable” of scientific and technological cognition of strategic capabilities in emerging fields into the “energy” of building a strong army and winning wars.
Improve capabilities through practice. A knife needs to be sharpened and a person needs to be trained. To enhance the scientific and technological cognition of strategic capabilities in emerging fields, it is necessary not only to nourish the theory to promote the transformation of ideas and concepts, but also to follow the basic law of human cognitive movement of “practice, cognition, re-practice, and re-cognition”, make good use of the actual combat “grindstone” to sharpen the wisdom, and promote the scientific and technological cognition of strategic capabilities in emerging fields to a higher level. We must have the courage to improve quality and capabilities in the practice of strengthening the military with science and technology and strengthening training with science and technology, adhere to learning while doing and learning while doing, focus on our main responsibilities and main business, delve into cutting-edge science and technology based on our posts and combat positions, and improve our scientific and technological acumen, insight, and response speed; enhance our technical understanding of new equipment, new skills, and new tactics, cultivate scientific thinking, master scientific methods, improve our scientific and technological cognition, and cultivate the ideological awareness of strengthening the construction of strategic capabilities in emerging fields from a scientific and technological perspective; keep a close eye on powerful enemies and future battlefields to cultivate a stronger “technological mind”, be familiar with our opponents’ scientific and technological achievements, capabilities, and means, accurately grasp the “hard core” and “soft ribs” of our opponents’ scientific and technological development, adhere to the asymmetric thinking to tailor-make struggle strategies and tactics, and provide strong guarantees for winning this future high-end war and hybrid war.
(Author’s unit: Military Science Academy, Institute of Political Work)
● Accelerating the development of military intelligence is the choice of the times to seize the commanding heights of military strategic competition and win future wars.
●The extensive use of smart weapons has become the new protagonist on the battlefield, which will inevitably give rise to new combat styles, profoundly change the traditional combat power generation model, and subvert the traditional combat winning mechanism.
● To scientifically advance the development of military intelligence, the top priority is to explore the winning rules of intelligent warfare.
The report of the 19th CPC National Congress clearly requires the acceleration of the development of military intelligence. At present, major countries in the world regard artificial intelligence as a disruptive technology that “changes the rules of the game” and accelerate the preparation for intelligent warfare. To seize the commanding heights of future military strategic competition and do a good job in intelligent warfare research, the first thing to do is to recognize and grasp the winning rules of intelligent warfare, and provide scientific needs and strong traction for promoting the development of military intelligence. Intelligent warfare is an autonomous warfare supported by a cloud environment. The winning of warfare follows both the general winning mechanism and its own new characteristics and laws.
Deep understanding of the battlefield
War activities are extremely complex, but they can generally be divided into two categories: cognitive domain and action domain. War cognition includes perception, understanding, judgment, decision-making, as well as beliefs and values. In cold weapon and hot weapon warfare, cognitive behavior is basically completed by humans. In information warfare, computer technology and network technology have expanded the ability of weapon systems to recognize and understand the battlefield, but have not changed the situation where the war cognitive system lags behind the action system.
In intelligent warfare, smart weapons of various forms become the protagonists, and their common understanding of the battlefield becomes a prerequisite for the coordinated actions of combat elements and combat units. In wartime, relying on dispersed intelligent reconnaissance and early warning equipment, battlefield situation information can be obtained in real time, and massive information can be intelligently analyzed and processed. The situation information can be uniformly managed in a combat cloud mode, and situation information can be distributed and shared according to authority as needed. A joint battlefield situation map with unified time and space benchmarks and consistent standards and specifications can be constructed to provide a unified background for smart weapons to jointly understand and understand the battlefield situation. Moreover, smart weapons themselves are embedded with massive basic data. In wartime, they can accurately understand the enemy and battlefield conditions by comparing and analyzing the real-time battlefield situation with their own databases.
The substantial improvement in war cognition has changed the situation where the war cognition system has long lagged behind the action system. It can be said that if we cannot deeply understand the battlefield, we cannot organize and implement intelligent warfare. The party that has an advantage in understanding the battlefield can usually take the initiative on the battlefield.
Flexible and friendly human-computer interaction
The organization and implementation of intelligent warfare relies on smart weapons to accurately understand the commander’s intentions and organize actions according to instructions. With the emergence and application of new concept computers such as neural network computers, optical computers, and biological computers, with the support of intelligent technologies such as voice recognition and text and graphic recognition, the human-computer interface of the command information system is highly intelligent, and the art of command and military strategy are deeply integrated into the human-computer interaction system, expert knowledge base system, and weapon intelligent guidance system. The expert system supported by the multidisciplinary knowledge base makes the human-computer exchange interface more convenient, flexible, and effective.
In wartime, the intelligent human-computer interactive command platform uses key technologies such as intelligent algorithms, big data, and cloud computing to effectively break through the limitations of human analytical capabilities, ensure that commanders can quickly and accurately judge and predict the development of the war situation, and assist commanders in selecting combat plans and making combat decisions. Through friendly human-computer interaction, commands are automatically transmitted to the corresponding command objects, directly controlling the combat actions of smart weapons. Smart weapons understand the commander’s intentions through their own intelligent terminals, and efficiently execute human commands, achieving a good integration of humans and smart weapons.
Swarm intelligence cross-domain collaboration
The protagonists of intelligent warfare are smart weapons of various forms. The key to the coordination of combat operations and the effectiveness of the combat system lies in the coordination and linkage between smart weapons. Although today’s unmanned combat systems have a certain degree of intelligence, their coordination still mainly relies on human instructions to organize and implement, and it is difficult to implement self-organized coordination between platforms.
In the future intelligent warfare, there will be a large number of smart weapons on land, sea, air and space. It is impossible to organize and coordinate efficiently by relying solely on rear personnel. It is necessary to rely on real-time sharing of battlefield situation information between weapon platforms and random self-organization and coordination according to the development and changes of battlefield situation. In order to ensure mutual understanding and linkage between smart weapons, unified combat rules are usually preset on the platform, such as unified rules for attack, maneuver and protection, and unified rules for communication and information distribution and sharing. With the further development of computer software and hardware technology, the expert system knowledge base of smart weapons contains tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of rules. In wartime, with the changes in enemy situation, our situation and battlefield environment, especially the development of enemy and our offensive and defensive actions, different combat scenarios will trigger corresponding combat rules. Smart weapons take corresponding reconnaissance, attack and protection actions according to unified rules to avoid mutual interference or even conflict. At the same time, through a highly accurate time system, a unified time benchmark is established to provide a unified benchmark for the combat operations of smart weapons in different spaces, support the optimization of smart weapons and autonomous coordination, and achieve intelligent group coordination.
Human control for timely intervention
Intelligent warfare is not completely autonomous warfare of smart weapons. People are always the planners, organizers and implementers of warfare. The selection of combat objectives and targets is judged and decided by people, and smart weapons carry out various actions based on the commander’s intentions. Because artificial intelligence can only partially think like humans, smart weapons lack human rational judgment and standards of right and wrong. As long as there are problems in the command and control link, it is possible to violate the commander’s intentions or even lose control, leading to a passive situation in the war. Similar incidents happen from time to time. In October 2007, three “Sword” robots of the 3rd Mechanized Infantry Division of the US Army did not replace the software in time. During the mission, one robot actually aimed its gun at the operator. Because it was completely out of control, it had to be destroyed in the end.
In future intelligent warfare, once the battlefield situation undergoes major changes, or the original combat objectives have been achieved, commanders must timely and accurately intervene in the reconnaissance, attack, and protection operations of smart weapons to ensure that smart weapons are always under human control and are controlled to achieve combat objectives according to the commander’s intentions.
Distributed Autonomous Action
Smart weapons are the main body of direct confrontation between the enemy and us, usually far away from the rear commanders and technicians. Moreover, the pace of intelligent warfare has accelerated unprecedentedly. The human brain cannot cope with the ever-changing battlefield situation, and some actions need to be handed over to smart weapons. In wartime, smart weapons embedded with artificial intelligence technology can accurately and continuously track targets in a rapidly changing battlefield environment, autonomously detect, autonomously process battlefield situation information, autonomously identify enemies and friends, and autonomously and flexibly use ammunition loads.
At the same time, through unified standard protocols and sharing mechanisms, a cloud environment with multi-dimensional coverage, seamless network links, random user access, on-demand extraction of information resources, and flexible and fast organizational guarantees is formed to realize “data warehouse”, “cloud brain” and “digital staff”, providing full coverage of cloud environment support for smart weapons. Smart weapons in different spaces become a node of the information network under the connection of information technology, and are no longer isolated and helpless. Supported by a large system, smart weapons integrate reconnaissance, identification, positioning, control, and attack, and can “kill” in seconds when discovered. During combat, with the development of the battlefield situation and combat needs, smart weapons in different spaces act autonomously. Whoever is suitable, whoever is dominant, whoever is advantageous, whoever launches, dispersed firepower, information power, mobility, and protection power are accurately released at the most appropriate time and the most appropriate place. Focusing on unified combat objectives, a combat power generation link of “situation sharing-synchronous collaboration-focused energy release” is formed to organize combat operations autonomously.
Remote Focused Technical Support
Smart weapons rely on high-tech technologies such as artificial intelligence and information networks. Their combat effectiveness is inseparable from the stable operation of operating systems and software, as well as technical experts and support personnel in the rear. The organization and implementation of intelligent combat operations will greatly reduce the dependence on traditional support such as materials and transportation, and the focus of support will be on intelligence, knowledge, information, networks, software, etc.
On the battlefield, the size of troops and weapons has decreased, while the technical support forces such as software design, network control, information resources, and equipment maintenance have increased unprecedentedly. In wartime, remote focused technical support should not only emphasize technical pre-storage and pre-positioning, but also rely on perception and response technology to integrate the perception system, control system, computer and user terminal of the entire battlefield space to form an interconnected and integrated technical support network. In particular, the artificial intelligence technology embedded in smart weapons and rear support facilities can be used to obtain the operating status of smart weapons in real time, discover their technical failures and support needs in a timely manner, update the support plan in real time, and distribute technical support needs to the support units; the rear technical support forces can “consult” the front-end smart weapons through the network to implement remote function recovery and technical information support.
In today’s era, the world pattern and social form are evolving rapidly, intelligent technology and cutting-edge cross-cutting technologies are constantly making new breakthroughs, new developments and new applications, and the scope of human action is accelerating from the physical domain, information domain, and social domain to the cognitive domain. Recent local wars in the world have shown that the status of cognitive domain operations has been rapidly improving and its role has become increasingly prominent. It has become the trend of the times and the key fulcrum for shaping the situation in advance, effectively balancing and influencing wars.
Clarify the basic methods of cognitive domain operations
Cognition is the reflection of the objective world in the subjective world of human beings, mainly involving knowledge, experience, consciousness, emotion and psychology. The targets of cognitive domain operations are mainly people who are in the main position in the war, with the characteristics of low cost, high efficiency and strong concealment. Entering the 21st century, the development of advanced science and technology and the changes in social structure have made cognitive domain operations a new high ground for the game between major powers, and even a “shortcut” to defeat the enemy without fighting.
Strengthen cognitive effects through continuous action in the physical domain. Cognitive domain warfare has always been associated with social development and human warfare. Before the mechanized era, cognitive domain warfare was mainly carried out through violent destruction of the physical domain by military forces, coupled with the flexible use of military strategies, and taking advantage of military forces to seize decisive results, to continuously strengthen the cognitive domain warfare effect. For example, the comparison of the number of military forces of both sides, the vastness of the occupied territory, the scale of the resources controlled, the support of peripheral countries, and the acceptance of the risk of failure, etc., can indirectly achieve the result of changing the enemy’s cognition, reluctantly accepting failure, and being forced to compromise. In 1945, Japanese fascism was at the end of its rope, but it was still dreaming of resisting stubbornly until the Chinese military and civilians launched a full-scale counterattack, the United States used atomic bombs to bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the Soviet army sent troops to Northeast China, forcing it to realize that defeat was inevitable and had to surrender unconditionally.
Using the interaction between the virtual and the real in the social domain to influence cognitive effects. War is the product of social development. In the information age, the rapid development of information networks has highlighted the role of the social domain. Cognitive domain warfare no longer emphasizes violent change of cognition, but pays more attention to the use of media platforms such as online media, radio and television, newspapers and magazines, and interviews to emotionally attract, anti-intellectual propaganda, corrupt and degenerate, and polarize various social groups. Collect the discordant factors in the emotional appeals, life needs, and value identification of typical social groups, and plan, step by step, and premeditatedly in the fields of politics, economy, diplomacy, finance, society, and culture, through the methods of continuously detonating topics, intensifying contradictions, adding fuel to the fire, continuing fermentation, and creating divisions, ultimately causing social unrest and even overthrowing the national regime. The disintegration of the Soviet Union, the upheaval in Eastern Europe, and the “color revolutions” in many parts of the world since the 1990s all have this shadow.
Targeting the cognitive domain to directly intervene in cognitive results. The way humans understand the world will transform the objective world in the same way, which is exactly the point of action of cognitive domain operations. Entering the intelligent era, breakthroughs have been made in cutting-edge fields such as biological intersection and brain control, and intelligent technologies such as advanced algorithms and brain-computer interfaces have been continuously upgraded. Advanced technologies such as big data and cloud computing have been rapidly developed and applied. Cognitive domain operations in the intelligent era pay more attention to the role of intelligent technology. Through the deep interaction between real life and the virtual world of the Internet, the information collected and obtained is richer, the data is more complete, and the elements are more complete. Cognitive domain operations can already bypass the traditional physical domain and social domain based on the widely distributed intelligent information network, the surrounding visible intelligent terminals and the colorful intelligent applications, break through the tangible blockade restrictions of the other party, and directly implement the “downward strike” of the cognitive domain on the core circle, elite class and the general public of the predetermined target through targeted and precise push.
Clarify the mechanism of cognitive domain operations
Entering the era of intelligence, human thinking has become a new direction for war planning and a new field for war games. Its essence is to face the spiritual level of the combat target, and to list human will, belief, thinking, psychology, etc. as combat targets. By maintaining one’s own cognitive advantage and attacking the enemy’s cognitive disadvantage, the cognitive domain attack and defense confrontation is carried out. The specific action mechanism also presents the characteristics of multi-domain action and mixed superposition.
Implement value standard penetration. Values are the principle standards for people to distinguish right from wrong and good from bad. They are at the core of generating motivations for personnel behavior, play a leading role in driving group behavior patterns, and are the key to seizing the initiative in cognitive domain operations. Cognitive domain operations are mainly based on network psychology and cybernetics to identify and predict human group behavior and individual activities, and then create more accurate specific group interaction concepts. On this basis, targeting the opponent’s value orientation, using the opponent’s cultural language, and comprehensively using strong media, social networks, and intelligent technologies, deliberately weave “information cocoons”, malicious narrative editing hints, mobilize the emotions of the target group, advocate minority extreme orientations, induce value deviations, kidnap and manipulate public opinion, and ultimately make cognitive domain operations effective. The foundation of the opponent’s belief, the destination of the soul, and the spiritual home. In recent local conflicts, the United States and Western countries have launched cognitive domain operations through narrative fabrication, script arrangement, and rhetoric manipulation, attempting to cause oppressive pressure on the opponent in multiple fields at all times, and many countries who are unaware of the situation have been dragged into it unknowingly.
Creating psychological and emotional internal friction. Psychological fluctuations and emotional changes are natural biological attributes of human beings, and are also the breakthrough points for cognitive domain operations to strike, weaken, and disintegrate the enemy’s will to fight. Cognitive domain operations are based on the basic principles of psychology, neurology, and brain science, emphasizing the use of human psychological weaknesses such as fear, anxiety, suspicion, and doubt, and are carried out or implemented simultaneously at the strategic, campaign, and tactical levels. Cognitive domain operations mainly use deep fakes, scene posing, and algorithm recommendations to fabricate remarks on mainstream social platforms to discredit opponents. Foreign armies have used Internet celebrities, virtual accounts, and zombie armies to confuse cognition, disrupt public opinion, and deviate from the rhythm. By creating insecurity and exaggerating uncertainty within the enemy, group conflicts are intensified; by creating internal rifts, unity and harmony are destroyed; by amplifying distrust and increasing decision-making doubts, internal fighting and internal friction are increased. Ultimately, based on the traceless implantation, seamless connection, invisible operation, and senseless substitution of psychological emotions, “winning without fighting” is achieved.
Conduct human consciousness guidance and control. The integrated development of cognitive science and advanced technology has prompted cognitive domain operations to develop in the direction of computational intelligence, perceptual intelligence and cognitive intelligence, with stronger penetration and deeper influence. Major breakthroughs have been made in technologies such as multimodal emotion recognition, activation and protection based on big data. After mining and analyzing information data, the cognitive state of social groups can be seen at a glance, and the mental portrait of target personnel can be detailed. Based on efficient and flexible cognitive scenarios, subtle emotional associations and tendency intervention of brain-computer interfaces, cognitive domain operations can unconsciously influence and shape the opponent’s thinking and cognition. Intelligent cognitive weapon systems can effectively limit the enemy’s acquisition of useful information, induce the enemy to use erroneous data, reduce the speed of command decision-making, interfere with the operation of cognitive modes, and block correct cognitive output. Reports show that NATO, led by the United States, is actively promoting the weaponization of brain science and cognitive science research results, and is attempting to achieve cognitive control of the enemy by collecting, deciphering and interfering with the brain waves of combat targets.
Build a strong confrontation system for cognitive domain operations
The local war practices in recent years have shown that military force and technological advantages alone cannot completely determine the outcome of a war, and cognitive domain operations have an increasingly significant impact on the course of a war. They can not only trigger the start of a war, direct the continuation of a war, but also affect the end of a war. Therefore, it is particularly necessary to build a strong and resilient cognitive domain combat confrontation system.
Smooth the command and control mechanism of cognitive domain operations. Cognitive domain operations involve a wide range of fields and cover a lot of content. They require a combination of long-term preparation and short-term promotion, strengthening construction and preemptive preparation. Establish a firm overall national security concept, formulate an overall strategy for coping with cognitive domain operations, take the initiative to break the situation and shape the momentum, participate in global governance, strengthen China’s voice, and purify the public opinion environment. Overall consideration of the establishment of command organizations, integration of command nodes in different strategic directions, opening up multi-domain command and control links, improving cross-domain command processes, and flexible multi-domain integration guidance and control methods. Overall design of a multi-domain and cross-departmental collaboration framework, combined with national security situation analysis, regularly promote the operation of the collaboration mechanism. Sort out the list of responsibilities of each command level, draw clear functional boundaries in each field, and clarify cross-domain collaboration matters, operating procedures and standard requirements. Establish a cognitive early warning mechanism, divide combat intensity, organize virtual exercises and multi-level confrontations, and improve the ability to deal with cognitive domain threats.
Integrate the elements and forces of cognitive domain operations. Cognitive domain operations have both the threat of “gray rhinos” and the variables of “black swans”, so it is necessary to strengthen prevention and forge strong forces. Combine the design of the cognitive domain combat command system and provide multi-domain counterattack forces. Strengthen the response forces in traditional fields, expand the scope of functional business, and deepen the selection and training of professional talents. Develop new counterattack forces and integrate advantageous resources in emerging fields such as social media, psychological cognition, and intelligent unmanned. Activate civilian forces and international high-quality resources to create a cross-domain crisis response team and counterattack force cluster with systematic support, complete elements, and superb professional skills. Combine confrontation exercises and social practices, invest new forces, integrate new technologies, and add new means to strengthen the evaluation and inspection of containment and countermeasures.
Strengthen the basic engineering of cognitive domain operations. As the research and practice of cognitive domain operations continue to deepen, many new technologies and new theories will inevitably emerge, which need to be closely tracked and followed. Strengthen the research on global hot spots, pay attention to the changes in the gray area, and keep abreast of the latest developments in foreign cognitive domain operations and the latest trends in force deployment. Strengthen the analysis of war cases and explore new factors and elements of cognitive domain operations. Organize special topics to gather wisdom and analyze new mechanisms and laws of cognitive domain operations. Analyze the strategies and means of opponents, track and grasp their strategic adjustments and focus, and carry out counter-strategies and response research by level and field. Analyze the new means, technologies and practices of opponents using social media, international organizations and agents to carry out cognitive domain operations, so as to prevent and foresee in advance.
To implement the general principle of “the CMC is in overall control, the theater commands are responsible for combat, and the services are responsible for construction,” the services need to accurately grasp the interaction between combat and construction, strengthen coordination with the theater commands, and form a work pattern with clear rights and responsibilities, positive interaction, smooth and efficient operations. They should focus their main tasks, main responsibilities, and main energy on building and managing the troops. They should always adhere to the principles of leading construction in accordance with combat, building for combat, managing for combat, and using construction to promote combat, comprehensively improve the level of practical military training, and provide theater commands with high-quality combat forces.
Get the coordinates of building for war
The coordinates are the direction of the times for building for war. Only when the direction is clear can the construction be accelerated according to the track. Entering the new era, the firepower intensity, mobility speed, strike accuracy and intelligence level of weapons and equipment have greatly increased, the battlefield space has been continuously expanded, the coupling of combat operations has become closer, and the battlefield situation has changed more rapidly. Wars have gradually shown the characteristics of platform combat, system support, tactical operations, and strategic guarantees. In particular, the use of intelligent, stealth, and unmanned combat, as well as aerospace forces, new concept weapons, and highly effective destructive ammunition have fundamentally changed the concept of war time and space. The war form has accelerated the evolution from mechanized informationization to informationization and intelligence, and intelligent warfare has begun to emerge. The main construction of the military service should be the combat effectiveness of informationized warfare with intelligent characteristics, rather than the combat effectiveness of mechanized warfare. The military service should focus on informationized warfare with intelligent characteristics, turn its attention to intelligent military transformation, fully imagine the future war form, scale, intensity, spatial region, etc., and use concepts that transcend the times to lead the construction vision forward and forward; it is necessary to deeply study the victory mechanism, scientifically judge, and build what kind of troops are needed to win future wars, so as to be targeted.
Find the right target for construction
The target is not only a beacon of construction and development, but also a scale to test combat effectiveness. Only by setting up the correct target can the military build for war and guide the innovation and development of weapons and equipment, system organization and combat theory without deformation or distortion. The military builds for war, and the enemy is not an ordinary opponent, but a strong enemy in the world military game. This requires the military to build for war, and it must lock on the strong enemy, insist on focusing all its attention on defeating the strong enemy, and work hard to defeat the strong enemy. Closely aiming at the world’s first-class standards, the focus should be on firmly grasping the characteristics of future combat systems and system confrontations, exploring standardized and modular construction issues, and forming an integrated and linked system combat capability; focusing on the requirements of all-domain operations, focusing on tackling realistic issues such as rapid response, long-range delivery, and integrated support, and building a strong rapid and mobile cross-domain action capability. We must seize the key of balancing strong enemies, strengthen targeted research on strong enemies, focus on building what the enemy fears, and develop more things that can balance strong enemies. We must strive to have a chance of winning in battles, bargaining chips in negotiations, and confidence in deterrence. We must focus on solving bottleneck problems such as the construction of new forces of the military, the use of high-tech equipment, and information and intelligent integration, and comprehensively build a world-class military.
Innovation and construction as the forerunner of the war
Theory is the forerunner of practice, and scientific military theory is combat effectiveness. Whoever can grasp the pulse of future war development and possess superb war design capabilities will win the initiative in war and even the final victory. The military should build for war, and it cannot just go wherever it wants. It should put research and construction in a strategic position, carry out forward-looking, targeted, and reserve innovative research, propose new concepts, find new breakthroughs, and form innovative theories that are contemporary, leading, and unique. The military should build for war, and it must focus on the current practice and future development of war, clarify the vertical evolution axis, focus on shaping the future battlefield and changing the research of future combat rules, and promote the reshaping of concepts and the reconstruction of systems as soon as possible; focus on cutting-edge technology and future intelligent war design, and make great efforts to achieve major breakthroughs in new technologies and new forms of war; focus on continuously promoting the development of new concepts such as combat thinking, action style, and capability requirements, and form forward-looking thinking on future combat operations. At the same time, the new theories and concepts should be systematized and concretized, and become a “roadmap” for planning and designing the construction of force systems, the development of weapons and equipment, the transformation of military training, and the training of combat talents. It is necessary to form a closed loop from practice to theory and then from theory to practice, allow military theoretical research to draw rich nutrients from practice, allow advanced and mature theoretical results to enter the military decision-making and practical links, and achieve a virtuous interaction between theory and practice.
Build a hard core of construction for war
Science and technology are the most revolutionary force. Scientific and technological innovation has always been a race against time and speed. If you don’t work hard to innovate, you will fall behind and be beaten. If you innovate slowly, you will also fall behind and be beaten. Today, scientific and technological innovation has become the core strategy for many countries and militaries to seek advantages. The military must pay close attention to the leading role of science and technology in building for war. By integrating the most cutting-edge and even imagined future science and technology into the overall construction plan, it will lead the basic direction of construction and development, and actively explore the scientific and technological innovation path of using the future army to fight a future war with the future enemy; it must implement the strategy of strengthening the military with science and technology, demand combat effectiveness from scientific and technological innovation, vigorously cultivate new scientific and technological growth points, and strive to increase the contribution rate of scientific and technological innovation to the development of the combat effectiveness of the military; it must face the world’s scientific and technological frontiers, the main battlefields of the future, and the major needs of combat, accelerate the pace of innovation, and plan and demonstrate that one item must be launched, especially to let disruptive technology run ahead, strive to run faster, and win new advantages. Obviously, talent is the key to building a hard core for war. Talent is the most difficult preparation. Whoever has more high-quality new military talents will be able to gain or gain more winning opportunities on the battlefield in the future. We must accurately grasp the characteristics and laws of modern warfare and the requirements for military transformation and construction, so as to train the talents needed for war and prioritize the talents that are most in short supply, so that the supply side of talent training can be accurately matched with the demand side of future battlefields.
Laying a solid foundation for building for war
Fighting is hard-hitting, while training is practical. The root of “war” lies in “construction”, and the foundation of “construction” lies in “training”. Military training, as the regular and central work of the troops, is not only the basic way to generate and improve combat effectiveness, but also the most direct preparation for military struggle. In the new era, the form of war is accelerating towards informationization and intelligence, the mission and tasks of the army are constantly expanding, the level of informationization and intelligence of weapons and equipment is gradually improving, and the conditions for training support are gradually improving. It is urgent for the services to comprehensively upgrade their combat capabilities from considering the interaction of multiple fields such as the form of war, combat methods, weapons and equipment, and personnel quality, to analyzing the influence of many factors such as known and unknown, possible and impossible, and possible and impossible. To build for war, we must focus on training against strong enemies, practice reconnaissance, coordination, equipment, and support around the progress of the real enemy situation, practice strong force deployment, practice fast battlefield construction, practice real equipment data, and practice strong support support; we must aim at the latest enemy situation in multiple fields such as land, sea, air, space, and cyberspace, and carry out real, difficult, strict, and practical full-element training in the re-enactment of the scene, “fight” with strong enemies, and let the troops hone their skills and strengthen their strength in the real confrontation; we must pursue extreme training, constantly impact the limits of people and equipment, so that the physiological and psychological limits of officers and soldiers, the performance limits of equipment, and the combat effectiveness limits of the combination of people and weapons can be fully exerted. Only by using “forced to the extreme, difficult to the extreme” training to present all shortcomings and weaknesses and overcome them can we cope with the most brutal battlefield. Some tactics and methods trained beyond the limit are often the key move and fatal blow to defeat the enemy in actual combat.
Do a good job in coupling construction with combat
The fundamental purpose of war and construction is to be able to fight and win. We must accelerate the realization of functional coupling under the new system and work together to accelerate the generation of combat effectiveness. To build an army that adapts to future combat needs is to build troops that can complete future combat tasks and have corresponding combat capabilities. Combat requirements are the specific embodiment of such task requirements and capabilities. Construction for war should be based on the needs of fulfilling missions and tasks, and should be designed in advance for future combat military needs. Military needs should be used to guide various military constructions, and combat needs should be continuously refined and dynamically adjusted to promote the coupling of war and construction. By strengthening the demonstration and research of future combat needs and making good top-level planning, we can grasp the direction and focus of military construction in general, consider the comprehensive development of military weapons and equipment and personnel quality from a strategic height and long-term development, clarify the focus, insist on doing what we should do and not doing what we should not do, concentrate on developing strategic and key projects, give priority to emergency operations, correctly handle the primary and secondary, urgent and slow, light and heavy aspects of military construction, firmly grasp the main and key aspects, and promote coordinated and coordinated military construction, scientific and reasonable, standardized and orderly, and sustainable development. Scientific combat effectiveness assessment can not only scientifically and specifically understand the composition and strength of one’s own combat effectiveness, but also help to take targeted measures to promote the coupling of construction and combat, timely discover and correct deficiencies in construction, truly realize the scientific development, intensive and efficient development of the army, and promote combat effectiveness construction to a higher level.
Strictly grasp the test of building for war
Whether a unit is well built and has the ability to win a battle must ultimately be tested through military practice. After a comprehensive test of military practice, problems in unit construction will inevitably be exposed, thereby promoting the army to make corresponding adjustments in the content, focus and direction of construction. Through repeated tests of military practice, new requirements and new goals are constantly put forward for unit construction, thereby leading the development of unit construction to a higher stage. Make good use of network simulation confrontation test. The informatization and intelligence of network simulation confrontation make the cognition, decision-making, feedback, correction, and action of simulation confrontation more close to actual combat, revolutionize the process of military activities, and then have a positive effect on weapons and equipment, command and control, force organization and other fields, thereby promoting the continuous leap in the combat effectiveness of the troops, and even giving birth to new war styles and changing the mechanism of winning wars. Make good use of on-site live-fire exercises. As a pre-practice of future wars, live-fire exercises can not only effectively test the actual combat capabilities of the troops, but more importantly, they can discover some weak links in the construction of the troops, optimize and improve them in a targeted manner, and obtain the maximum combat effectiveness return. Make good use of war practice tests. The leading role of war practice in unit construction is irreplaceable. The harsh practice of war can truly test which troop construction is suitable and which is unsuitable for future wars, and then correct deviations and mistakes in many aspects such as construction guidance, construction focus, and construction methods, so as to prepare for winning the next war.
In today’s era of integrated development of informatization and intelligence, information networks will play an irreplaceable and important role in cognitive warfare with their advantages of deep reach, wide audience, and strong interactivity. With the blessing of information networks, cognitive warfare will be even more powerful and at ease. A deep understanding of the mechanisms, basic forms, methods and means of information networks’ role in cognitive warfare will help to timely grasp the initiative in cognitive warfare and lay the foundation for victory.
The Mechanism and Law of Information Network Cognitive Warfare
The essence of cognitive warfare in the role of information networks is to provide massive amounts of information through core algorithms, create biased cognitive scenarios, and influence the thinking and cognition of people and intelligent machines. This process integrates the operating rules of information networks and the internal mechanisms of thinking and cognition, has strong predictability, and is the underlying architecture and key point that must be grasped in information network cognitive warfare.
Sticky effects based on path dependence. The highly developed information network in today’s society provides an inseparable platform for people to study, work, live, and entertain, as well as for military construction, operations, and military struggle preparations, forming an interconnected path dependence between them. With information as the core and the Internet as the medium, this platform connects different groups of people, societies, countries, including the military, through invisible stickiness. It not only opens up the entire world into a closely connected global village, but also objectively provides a basis for carrying out cognitive operations. , influence the opponent’s thinking and cognition, and provide a bridge and link to win the cognitive war. In 2009, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton delivered an “Internet Freedom” speech, advocating the “Internet Freedom” strategy in an attempt to use the channel formed by people’s high dependence on the Internet to influence the thinking and cognition of people in rival countries, especially the younger generation, and spread American values. .
Interactive influence based on information exchange. Education believes that interactive communication can effectively overcome the cognitive barriers formed by one-way information transmission, reach consensus, form empathy, and strengthen empathy through information exchange, emotional integration, and mutual promotion of needs. A big difference between information networks and traditional communication media is that they provide a carrier that can interact and communicate on a large scale, at a fast pace, and with high efficiency. In this carrier, the information-dominant party can repeatedly confirm the influence, adjust methods and strategies, and intervene in the thinking and cognition of the other party through the interactive mechanism provided by the carrier based on the other party’s ideological fluctuations, emotional changes, attitude feedback, etc. For a long time, the United States has maintained a “engagement + containment” strategy toward China. One of the important considerations is that this kind of contact can effectively overcome the communication barriers and information gaps formed by simple blockade and confrontation, enhance the interaction between the two governments and the people, and thus find opportunities to open gaps and influence our ideas and ideologies. Although this strategy occurs in the traditional field, it is inherently consistent with the interactive influence mechanism of information networks based on information exchange.
Induced influence based on preset scenarios. The concealment, virtuality and permeability of information networks enable their controllers to create highly deceptive, tempting and inflammatory information scenarios through technical and strategic means such as water army flooding, information filtering and “fishing in troubled waters”, so that the opponent is deeply trapped in it without knowing it, but develops towards the preset process and results. This directional manipulation of information networks can subtly and efficiently influence, infect and shape the opponent’s thinking and cognition, so that they are unconsciously led by the rhythm, and achieve a much better combat effect than confrontation. On the eve of the Iraq War, the US media spread false information such as the existence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq through the Internet and other platforms, accusing the Saddam regime of collusion with al-Qaeda, corruption, and unprovoked killing of the Iraqi people. At the same time, they tried every means to cover up the truth, filter out the anti-war voices of their own people, and strive to create an atmosphere that the Saddam regime is evil and hateful and the whole United States is united against the enemy.
The basic form of cognitive warfare in the role of information networks
The laws of war and the winning mechanism determine the basic shape of war. The regular mechanism of information network’s role in cognitive warfare inherently determines the external form of this kind of war. The most basic and representative ones include information confusion warfare, thinking misleading warfare and will-destroying warfare.
Information confusion war. It is to infuse the network with a large amount of complex information that combines reality and reality, and is both real and illusory, causing the enemy’s information network capacity to be overloaded, dysfunctional, and out of order, or causing specific audiences to become “deaf, blind, and insensible,” causing cognitive congestion and cognitive impairment. and impaired decision-making and judgment. This form of war is often used in the early stages of combat and on opaque battlefields. The party with information superiority can cause the enemy to fall into a state of confusion and panic, resulting in loss of perception, loss of thinking, and confusion. According to Bloomberg, the Space Force, the newly established sixth military branch of the United States, plans to purchase 48 jamming systems by 2027, aiming to interfere with satellite signals of major powers “in the event of conflict.” The military forces of many countries generally feel that the information they obtain now is not too little but too much. The huge amount of information coming from all directions has caused huge pressure on situational awareness and analysis and judgment.
War of misleading thinking. It is to form a tendentious information scene by instilling specific information containing the intention of the information network controller, misleading, deceiving and influencing the thinking and ideas of specific countries, armies and people, causing them to deviate from the correct development track and move in a direction that is beneficial to oneself and harmful to the enemy. The direction deviation is the highest state and common practice of cognitive attack. This kind of misdirection is premised on strong external pressure, based on specious strategies, and uses mixed information as a weapon. It targets the opponent’s thinking characteristics and weak links to implement clearly oriented deception, causing the opponent to lose its way in tension and panic. Unknowingly fell into the “trap”. In recent years, while implementing the strategy of great power competition, some countries have used online trolls to fabricate false information, create false information, and spread true rumors to stir up trouble around our country and instigate some countries that have had grievances with our country in history and friction in reality. The purpose of provoking quarrels and provoking troubles is to induce us to divert our attention, weaken the investment of resources and strength in the main strategic directions, deviate from the track of rejuvenation of a strong country, and seek to reap the benefits of the fishermen.
Will-destroying war. Futurist Alfred Toffler said that whoever controls the human mind controls the entire world. War is ultimately a confrontation between people. People’s psychological activities greatly affect their mental state, which in turn affects their will to fight. Will-destroying war is different from traditional warfare that indirectly affects people’s will through material destruction. It directly affects the psychological activities, mental state and thinking decisions of key figures, affecting military morale, fighting will and combat operations. With the development of science and technology and social progress, the intervention in people’s will has evolved from the traditional strategy-based intervention to the “technology + strategy” stage. More than ten years ago, scientists developed a “sound wave cluster” weapon that emits extremely narrow sound wave “sound columns” from hundreds of meters away through an electromagnetic network, interfering with the enemy’s judgment and even causing strong-willed soldiers to become insane. In recent years, studies have shown that artificial speech synthesis technology based on brain wave signals can extract signals from the brain and synthesize speech that humans can directly understand.
Information network plays a major role in cognitive warfare
“Technology + strategy” constitutes the basic means of modern cognitive warfare. As a product of the development of modern science and technology, the information network’s role in cognitive warfare is mainly reflected in “technology + strategy”. This provides a basic entry point for us to understand and grasp the methods and scientific paths of the role of information networks in cognitive warfare, so as to win the war.
Big data shaping. As the core component of information networks, data is not only the carrier of information, but also the “new oil” that drives the value of information networks, and is the basic ammunition for cognitive warfare. By constructing complex information scenarios for my own use through massive data, it can confuse the opponent’s thinking, mislead and deceive the opponent’s thinking, or destroy belief and will, which constitutes the basic logic of cognitive warfare in the role of information networks. In this logical architecture, data is undoubtedly the most basic resource and the core element. A few years ago, authoritative departments calculated that the world produces about 2.5 exabytes (EB) of data every day, of which only 20% is structured data that can be directly utilized, and the remaining 80% needs to be analyzed, screened, and screened. These geometrically growing data resources provide inexhaustible “data ammunition” for shaping data information scenarios and implementing cognitive warfare.
Intelligent push. In the information network era, intelligent push has become a convenient channel for people to absorb external information, gain thinking recognition, emotional resonance, and influence others’ thinking cognition. Using advanced technologies such as artificial intelligence to collect, organize, and analyze people’s thinking inertia and behavioral preference data, forming anthropomorphic customized perception push, can produce an “echo wall” of social cognitive convergence and an information cocoon that shackles people. At the same time, it is also conducive to empathizing with others, understanding the opponent’s thinking trends and possible actions, and taking targeted countermeasures. In life, we all have the experience of a large amount of similar information being pushed in after shopping online or searching for a certain type of information once or several times. This intelligent push method is applied to cognitive operations, which can easily enable the information leader to use information network data to make forward-looking analysis and judgment on the decisions and actions that the command and decision-making level of the combat target may make, and induce them to make the decision actions they want to see or make corresponding countermeasures in advance.
Emotionally imbued. Freud said that we are not pure intelligence, pure soul, but a collection of impulses. In the information network space, conceptual cognition that can be widely and rapidly spread is often not a calm, rational and objective thinking analysis, but mostly impulsive and irrational emotional mobilization. This is determined by the fast pace of information dissemination and news release “pre-emptively”. The cognitive need to respond quickly to this information, in turn, leads to “fast thinking” conditioned reflexes, impulsive, and emotional reactions, transforming seemingly isolated social cases into strongly oppressive, inciting psychological suggestions and Behavior-driven, explosive behavior prompts irrational decision-making. A diplomatic cable disclosed by WikiLeaks in June 2009 described an extravagant banquet for the Ben Ali regime in Tunisia and described the regime as a “mafia” of corruption and tyranny, which deepened the resentment of the country’s citizens. Emotions thus became an important driver of the “Jasmine Revolution” that overthrew Ben Ali’s regime.
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 warfare 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 land, sea, air, and space; in the information domain, we block the enemy, connect ourselves, and compete for network and information control, all of which are 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 on the decision-making issues, military morale, public opinion concerns, social confidence, international public opinion and other levels of both the enemy and ourselves, which will be rapid, sudden, and unexpected. It profoundly 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 seize control of the brain, mind, and intelligence. The dynamic changes in the number of enemies destroyed, the temporary gains and losses of one city and one place, etc., are increasingly losing their indicator significance in evaluating the direction of the war situation. The overall impact of military operations on the war situation increasingly needs to be considered from the changes in international and domestic public perceptions caused by them. 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 strategic situation, 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 first of all because the Han army completed the military encirclement of the Chu army, and secondly, it used the ingenuity of the captives 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 all convey very different information, and the intensity of the generated cognitive impact is also 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 operations such as fire strikes, network offense and defense, electronic countermeasures, defensive operations, special operations, etc., different levels of imagination and creative thinking, 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 during 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 active kinetic energy operations into more subtle cultural wars” and should have “unique intuition” and “comprehensive leadership capabilities” in this regard. To realize the integrated linkage of cognitive domain penetration and multi-domain impact 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 impact 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.
