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)
● 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.
Looking at the war conflicts that have broken out in recent years, the cognitive domain as an independent domain has become a battleground for various countries, and cognitive confrontation has become the focus of both sides’ offensive and defensive actions. In essence, cognitive domain operations mainly achieve the purpose of taking the cognitive initiative and defeating the opponent by influencing and shaping the opponent’s thinking, psychology, beliefs, and will, and then influencing and changing his decision-making and actions. At present, cognitive domain operations are gradually showing outstanding features such as rich content, diverse means, and concealed forms. In-depth study of the winning mechanism of cognitive domain operations and seizing the initiative in cognitive domain operations are the key to winning future informationized and intelligent wars.
Adapt to the situation, develop and innovate winning concepts
Military practice has repeatedly proven that the outcome of a war is not only a confrontation of military strength and weapons, but also a contest of ways of thinking and combat concepts. To occupy a dominant and proactive position in the field of cognition, it is particularly critical at present to establish new guiding concepts that are suitable for the information age.
Gather energy and excellence. Concentrating energy and excellence is an innovative development of the traditional concentration of superior forces. It is not only an important guideline for winning information wars with intelligent characteristics, but also a key move to seize the comprehensive advantage of cognitive confrontation. In recent years, technologies such as information networks and cluster control have become increasingly mature, continuously promoting the transformation of operations into wide-area distribution and real-time optimization. In line with this, under the cognitive domain, more emphasis should be placed on comprehensively implementing policies, gathering energy across domains, and seizing advantages at decisive nodes and hubs to achieve quick control and quick decisions to win.
Data leads. As a new type of war resource, data has become the basis for modern war command decisions and the blood of system operation. Giving full play to the advantages of data resources and taking the initiative in cognitive domain operations is an important part of seizing the strategic commanding heights. It is necessary to further strengthen data awareness and data thinking, strive to improve the literacy of data decision-making and data guidance, and truly make data a “boost” for cognitive victory.
Intelligent collaboration. The continuous development of artificial intelligence technology and the continuous enhancement of autonomous perception, decision-making, and evaluation capabilities based on network information systems are promoting the maturity of man-machine dynamic sharing of information, intelligent planning and assignment of tasks, and close collaboration and precise attack. In the cognitive domain, intelligent collaboration will become an important starting point. Information integration, human-machine collaboration, optimal decision-making, and real-time mutual assistance will become necessary means to gain the upper hand on the battlefield, take the initiative, and seek victory.
Follow the inherent rules and closely follow the value of offense and defense
Cognitive domain operations do not exist independently, but enter the perceptual space through physical domain actions and information domain flows, influencing the opponent’s value judgment and changing the opponent’s cognitive system in cognitive offense and defense, thereby triggering the opponent’s cognitive “avalanche” effect, putting the opponent in a “land of defeat” situation. For this purpose, it is necessary to conduct in-depth research and analysis of the opponent’s political, economic, military, cultural and other factors, discover the core values that affect the opponent’s combat cognition, and then comprehensively adopt strategies, technologies and other means to deeply influence and shape the opponent’s thinking cognition and value judgment.
It must be noted that the release of operational effectiveness in the cognitive domain is often highly durable. Only by adopting a series of uninterrupted, normalized and flexible means based on foresight and long-term planning, can we gradually build common values within the opponent. In order to have an impact, we can achieve the effectiveness of cognitive domain operations. In the information age, Western developed countries often use network communication technology to subtly influence and shape the thinking, cognition, and value system of their opponents, thereby shaking the ideological and cultural foundation of their opponents and building the basis of public opinion for cognitive domain operations. The many “color revolutions” that have occurred around the world in recent years are largely the result of Western countries’ long-term infiltration and manipulation of public opinion and the gradual release of their operational effectiveness in the cognitive domain.
There is no doubt that the confrontation that occurs in the cognitive domain ultimately affects the human brain, affecting people’s emotions, motivations, judgments and actions, and even controlling people’s thinking. Because of this, some people believe that as the engine of cognition, the “brain” may become the main target and main battlefield in future wars. It is worth noting that a distinctive feature of modern cognitive domain operations is the increasing frequency of technology applications and its prominent role. Especially with the in-depth intervention of information technology, artificial intelligence, etc., cognitive domain operations will pay more attention to the competition of comprehensive technical strength. From this perspective, only by seeking breakthroughs and taking the initiative in cognitive technologies such as big data, cloud computing, information networks, artificial intelligence, brain control, and the metaverse can we gain cognitive advantages.
Focus on maximum efficiency and adhere to the combination of software and hardware
Cognitive space is highly scalable, but in essence it is still a mapping of human activities and social relationships, closely related to and interacting with the real world. Without strong support from specific military operations in the physical domain, operations in the cognitive domain will ultimately be difficult to produce real results. From this perspective, cognitive domain operations are not isolated actions. Only by clarifying the inherent laws of the comprehensive application of soft power in the cognitive domain and hard power in the physical domain, integrating cognitive offense and defense into the joint operations chain, and realizing the close integration of combat forces in different fields, Only through mutual support and organic integration can the maximum effectiveness of cognitive domain operations be achieved.
In the information age, the focus of cognitive confrontation is not simply to completely eliminate the enemy, but to put more emphasis on accurately releasing combat energy through precise time, precise information and precise actions, thereby depriving or reducing the enemy’s decision-making ability. On the one hand, we must focus on making full use of asymmetric means to destroy the enemy’s intelligence, command, communication, strike, and support links through efficient and fast operations in land, sea, air, space and other tangible combat domains, destroy the enemy’s war potential foundation, and firmly establish Seize the initiative on the battlefield. On the other hand, it is necessary to emphasize taking precautions, arranging virtual space confrontations in advance, always paying attention to spiritual and will confrontations, and actively seeking ways to form strong psychological oppression and disintegrate the opponent’s will to resist. In order to achieve the superposition of the two effects, we should pay close attention to the linkage and cooperation between the signal fire strike in the physical domain and the comprehensive destruction and paralysis in the cognitive domain, closely track the effects of accurately attacking the enemy’s decision-making, actions, spirit and beliefs based on the network information system, and be proactive Explore the strategy of fighting with the fundamental purpose of conquering the heart and mind.
Targeting system operation paralyzes fighting will
No matter how the times develop and technology advances, people are always the decisive factor in the outcome of a war and the core force supporting the operation of the combat system. Among them, the will to fight can be said to be the spiritual core that supports combat. Cognitive domain operations require a wide range of measures, especially the use of intelligence warfare, psychological warfare, public opinion warfare, network warfare and other lethal means to attack, weaken and deprive the enemy of the spiritual core of its fighting will, so that it can It surrendered psychologically and volitionally, and eventually led to the collapse of its combat system.
Cognitive domain operations in the information age have the characteristics of large-scale and all-domain operations. Depriving the enemy of the will to fight emphasizes interference, influence, and control in multiple fields, multiple dimensions, and multiple time periods, and achieves awareness of the enemy through overall joint efforts. advantages to realize one’s own combat plans. For example, we can accurately grasp the opponent’s cognitive foundation, thinking patterns, cultural habits, etc., and take targeted actions such as creating a situation, changing the atmosphere, stimulating psychology, and penetrating and corroding to disintegrate the integrity and unity of the opponent’s cognitive system and strongly weaken the opponent’s determination and will. Another example is to widely adopt various cognitive means and actively use offensive operations in the physical domain and information domain to powerfully destroy the opponent’s key nodes, interfere with the opponent’s cognitive judgment, and delay the opponent’s effective response to destroy and deprive its soldiers of morale. We can also adopt targeted strategies based on the opponent’s traditional culture, rational logic, and personality shortcomings, and carry out step-by-step and systematic actions at all levels in the military, economic, cultural, diplomatic, and public sentiment areas, and formulate a new model by changing the original cognition. Effective control to dissolve and soften their will to fight. With the in-depth development of technology, cognitive equipment represented by brain-controlled weapons in the future may have the ability to directly interfere with or control the enemy’s brain cognition, not only causing confusion in their consciousness, but even inducing them to take actions that violate the common sense of war. .
Focus on proactive adaptation and optimization of combat design
Although cognitive domain operations play an increasingly prominent role in modern warfare, it cannot be assumed that cognitive domain operations are omnipotent or even replace traditional combat operations. The realization of the comprehensive effectiveness of cognitive domain operations is a complex system engineering. In order to take the cognitive initiative and adapt to information warfare, we must proceed from the strategic overall situation and strive to optimize combat design in practice.
Integration of skills. In cognitive domain operations, the use of strategy is an inherent part of it. Although technical factors are increasingly important in modern cognitive domain operations, the role of strategy is still difficult to replace. It can be said that the development and evolution process of cognitive domain operations is, to some extent, a process of mutual promotion and close integration of strategy and technology. In this process, strategies are enriched by the addition of technology, and technology becomes stronger by the application of strategies. To grasp the cognitive initiative and fight the battle of cognitive initiative, we must not only make good use of strategies, but also strengthen the application of technology, organically combine strategy and technology, and strive to strengthen the comprehensive effectiveness of cognitive offense and defense.
Combination of offense and defense. Cognitive domain operations are a unity of opposites between offense and defense. They are cognitive offensive and defensive activities that carry out influence and counter-influence, penetration and counter-infiltration, destruction and counter-destruction, control and counter-control in the cognitive space. It is necessary to clearly understand the strengths and weaknesses of the opponent, seize the cognitive loopholes of the opponent, and concentrate on pursuing and attacking them to paralyze their psychological defenses and fully occupy the cognitive initiative. At the same time, it is necessary to strengthen the quasi-offensive and defensive conversion nodes and strengthen global cognitive protection. We must stick to our own perceptions, clearly promote our own values and war stance, unify our will, unite our troops, and inspire morale. Strengthen protective and concealment measures in important cognitive areas, reduce the perceptibility of our own political, economic, social, information and other sensitive areas, strengthen relevant confidentiality protection methods, and effectively build a strong cognitive protection security barrier.
Through the smoke of war, we can see that today’s war has developed from barbaric flesh-and-blood battles and battles to capture cities and territories to information-led precise beheadings and fierce competition on the intellectual battlefield. This objective fact tells us that war, as a specific complex social phenomenon, will present different war forms and winning mechanisms in different historical periods. As American futurist Toffler pointed out, “Artificial intelligence is like previous missiles and satellites. Whether you are prepared or not, it will enter the historical stage of human civilization war.” President Xi clearly pointed out: “If we do not understand the winning mechanism of modern war, then we can only look at a diorama and miss the point.” The winning mechanism of war refers to the way in which various war factors play a role in winning a war. and the laws and principles of interconnection and interaction. Compared with information-based warfare in the traditional sense, the winning mechanism of future intelligent warfare has undergone significant changes.
The method of confrontation has changed from “system confrontation” to “algorithmic game”, and algorithmic advantages dominate war advantages.
Algorithms are strategic mechanisms for solving problems. In fact, an “algorithm” is a series of clear instructions for solving a problem. It is a clear step to solve a certain type of problem according to certain rules. In future wars, the party that masters the advantages of algorithms can quickly and accurately predict battlefield situations, innovate optimal combat methods, and achieve the war goal of “victory before fighting”.
Algorithms are the key to leading intelligent warfare. First, algorithmic advantages dominate cognitive advantages. After big data is processed through high-performance and efficient algorithms, massive data is quickly converted into useful intelligence. Therefore, the party with the advantage of the algorithm can dispel the “battlefield fog” caused by the lack of timely processing of data, making the understanding more profound. Second, the algorithm advantage dominates the speed advantage. Compared with classical algorithms, quantum algorithms have achieved exponential acceleration effects. In addition, quantum computers have increased from 1 qubit in 2003 to 1,000 qubits in 2015. The computing efficiency is 100 million times faster than that of classical computers. Artificial intelligence has achieved a qualitative leap. Third, algorithmic advantages dominate decision-making advantages. Algorithms, with their high-speed and precise calculations, replace people’s “meditation” and repeated exploration, thereby accelerating knowledge iteration. Mastering super powerful algorithms can quickly propose flexible and diverse combat plans and countermeasures in response to changes in the enemy’s situation, constantly disrupting the enemy’s established intentions and deployment.
Algorithms are at the heart of the jump in war effectiveness. First, war is more efficient. With the support of algorithms, artificial intelligence can react hundreds to thousands of times faster than humans. In 2016, the “Alpha” intelligent software developed by the United States has a reaction speed 250 times faster than humans. It controlled a third-generation aircraft to defeat a manned fourth-generation aircraft in a simulated air battle. Second, the war endurance is stronger. Artificial intelligence is not limited by physiological functions and can continuously perform repetitive and mechanical tasks. In September 2016, an F-16 fighter jet reached 8 times gravity during training, causing the pilot to lose consciousness. However, before the plane hit the ground, the onboard “automatic anti-collision system” automatically pulled the plane up, avoiding the tragedy. occur. Third, the outcome of the war is better. With the support of massive data and supercomputing capabilities, artificial intelligence judgment and prediction results are more accurate. The combined use of manned and unmanned equipment in the U.S. military’s search and hunt for bin Laden is a successful example.
Combat elements are changing from “information-led” to “machine-based warfare”, and machine-based warfare reshapes the combat process
In the future, intelligent technology will penetrate into all elements and processes of war. The Internet of Things, the Internet of Intelligence, and the Internet of Brains have become the basis of war. The four domains of physical domain, information domain, cognitive domain, and social domain are deeply integrated, making the battlefield holographically transparent. There are people to control the war and no one to fight on the battlefield. Intelligent weapons and equipment will reshape the combat process “from sensor to shooter”.
“Detection” with a keen eye. “Reconnaissance” refers to intelligent intelligence reconnaissance. It can use multi-dimensional sensors such as land, sea, air, space, and electricity for virtualized collaborative networking, self-organized dynamic scheduling, automatic mining of multi-source intelligence, and order-based on-demand use to maximize information shortage or information redundancy. The “fog of war” brought about by the epidemic has opened up the “eyes” to see through intelligent warfare.
Loop “control”. “Control” refers to intelligent command and control. Focusing on the core of decision-making advantages, we use the human-machine collaboration technology of “human in the loop” and adopt three decision-making and control methods of “human in the loop”, “human in the loop” and “human outside the loop” according to the autonomous authority of the machine. , forming a comprehensive advantage with superior decision-making quality and action speed.
Smart “hit”. “Strike” refers to intelligent offensive and defensive operations. Relying on the advantages of system structure and algorithm, it mobilizes all-domain multi-dimensional, manned and unmanned combat platforms in real time, quickly couples combat forces, builds combat systems on demand, focuses on targets, independently implements “distributed” and “swarm” collaborative operations, and quickly resolves battles after they are completed. Couple and wait for the battle, so that the troops can gather and disperse randomly. At the end of 2015, Russia invested 6 tracked unmanned combat vehicles, 4 wheeled unmanned combat vehicles and 1 drone to support the Syrian government forces in storming Islamic extremist strongholds and achieved the world’s first unmanned combat victory. Victory in the tough battle dominated by cars. During the battle, about 70 extremist militants were killed, while only four Syrian government troops were injured.
The decision-making method changes from “human brain decision-making” to “intelligent decision-making”, and intelligent decision-making optimizes combat operations
With the emergence of intelligent auxiliary decision-making technology and “cloud brain”, “digital staff” and “virtual warehousing”, war decision-making has evolved from pure human brain decision-making to human-machine hybrid decision-making, cloud-brain intelligent decision-making and neural network decision-making.
Human-machine hybrid decision-making. Reasonable division of labor and interaction and collaboration between humans and machines are the best solutions to explore and solve problems. The advantages of the human brain are creativity, flexibility, and initiative; the advantages of machines are fast speed, high precision, and resistance to fatigue. Artistic tasks such as high-level decision-making are handled by the human brain, and big data calculations are completed by machines. Human-computer interaction allows machines to “listen” to understand human language, “see” human movements and expressions, “understand” human emotions and intentions, and present the calculation process and results in a way that is easy for humans to understand.
Cloud brain intelligent decision-making. In future intelligent warfare, there will be a “brain” metaphor center, and distributed combat units will be linked through the cloud brain. This cloud brain is not only a physical information, physiological information and psychological information center, but also a military command center. Cloud brain decision-making is based on the intelligent “network, cloud and terminal” system. “Net” is an intelligent combat basic network integrating intelligent battlefield perception, decision-making and weapons control systems. “Cloud” is built on the basis of “network”, with the intelligent resource service layer as the main body. It is not only a “resource pool” that integrates various combat resources, but also an “intelligent cloud” that provides intelligent services for combat operations. Due to the coupling of multiple centers, rapid networking and decision-making can be achieved even when bombarded by information. “End” refers to the combat resource end, discrete intelligence and networked intelligence in combat processes, which can not only make independent decisions, but also provide distributed intelligent resources for the war system, allowing the new war system to emerge with group intelligence.
Neural network decision-making. In July 2018, Russia developed artificial neural network fully automatic software that can destroy immediately upon discovery. The intelligent decision-making tool developed by the US military is intended to shorten the decision-making cycle and improve decision-making efficiency. The application of neural networks was once limited to tactical-level calculations, making it difficult to make qualitative analysis and decisions on strategic-level macro-complex situations. “AlphaGo” has made a breakthrough in the field of Go by simulating the working mechanism of the human brain’s neural network. In the future, the super self-evolution and strategic decision-making capabilities of deep neural networks will realize a combat cycle of “people outside the loop”.
The combat style has changed from “breaking links and breaking bodies” to “extreme operations”, which subvert traditional combat methods.
Extreme warfare breaks through the boundaries of traditional warfare, subverts traditional combat styles, dramatically increases war effectiveness, and creates a truly all-weather, all-time, all-dimensional, all-domain intelligent warfare.
Break through the limits of human physiology and thinking. First, the combat space and fields have been extremely expanded. Intelligent warfare in the future will be three-dimensional, all-dimensional, and all-domain operations. The war space will expand from the traditional space field to the polar regions, deep seas, outer space, and other extremes. It will especially penetrate into the cognitive domain, information domain, and penetrate into other fields, including combat fields. More blurry. Second, the combat process has been extremely accelerated. Unmanned autonomous warfare has greatly compressed the “observation-judgment-decision-action” cycle, developing from the “instant destruction” of information warfare to the “instant destruction” of intelligent warfare. The victory of intelligent warfare is achieved by advancing the warning time, shortening the decision-making time, and extending the combat operations forward to achieve the effect of preemptive layout and preemptive strike. Third, combat operations are extremely flexible. In intelligent warfare, artificial intelligence can propose extremely rich combat plans, and the unmanned combat platform can quickly switch between different functional roles, making combat operations more bold and adventurous, and tactics more unexpected. Even if one of the combat elements loses its function, the “decentralization” function will ensure that the function of the group is not affected.
Subvert the traditional combat style. The first is intrusive lone wolf operations. That is, a single unmanned system operates independently. The second is the manned and unmanned coordinated system attack battle. That is, based on intelligent unmanned systems, through mixed operations with and without unmanned equipment, combat objectives can be quickly achieved. The third is the independent operation of unmanned system formations. Multiple sets of unmanned systems constitute a combat unit that can perform complex tasks such as multi-target attacks. The fourth is mothership swarm operations. Using the mothership as the transportation carrier and command center, a manned and unmanned hybrid swarm combat style is formed.
It has the combat effectiveness of “nuclear power”. Intelligent warfare maximizes the characteristics and potential of intelligent robots, leading to combat effectiveness approaching the limit. First, the target is small and difficult to find. For example, miniaturized stealth robots are difficult to detect with radar and sonar. The U.S. hybrid UAV with an Optode chip embedded in the Dragonfly is smaller, lighter and more stealthy, with a battery life of up to several months. Second, confrontation is difficult and costly. For example, as long as a beetle-sized micro-drone scans a human face, it can directly hit the target’s head after data analysis and determination, and it can carry enough ammunition to penetrate the brain. Third, the cost is low and the damage is great. In the future, the use of intelligent weapons in extreme operations will have the power of nuclear weapons, especially extremely large-scale intelligent weapons and equipment, extremely low-cost robot automatic production, and extremely flexible robot swarm operations, which may exceed the maximum explosion power of nuclear weapons.
Social cognition refers to how individuals understand and think about others, and form inferences about others or things based on social information in the environment. Social cognition is the basis of individual behavior and an important starting point for cognitive domain operations. As a member of society, people are naturally affected by social cognition. Analyzing the social path to the effectiveness of cognitive domain operations is of great practical significance for strengthening the construction of cognitive domain operations and winning future wars.
Actively shape social cognition through public opinion propaganda
Cognitive attack and defense is not achieved overnight and needs to be carried out continuously over a long period of time. Operations in the cognitive domain often begin before the war. They comprehensively use political, economic, diplomatic and other means to affect various social fields of the target country. They actively shape social cognition through public opinion propaganda and form mainstream social opinions that are beneficial to one’s own side. They play a comprehensive role in wartime. The wonders of checks and balances.
Focus on overall mobilization. Before the war begins, cognition comes first. Implementing cognitive domain operations requires effective public opinion preparation in the early stage, and on this basis, a unified and self-interested social cognitive situation can be formed. Psychologist Lasswell once said: “There is no doubt that the government’s guidance of public opinion is an inevitable development trend of large-scale modern war.” Before launching a war, we must aim to win the advantage of public opinion and carry out cognitive planning in advance. Strive for the broadest domestic and international support. The focus of cognitive domain operations that precede war is to create a mainstream social opinion through news and public opinion, and conduct comprehensive social mobilization to prepare for, launch, and win the war, so as to effectively guide the public to support the government. decision-making and seeking political support from the international community.
Strengthen strategic layout. Cognitive domain operations during war preparations should focus on advance strategic planning and public opinion shaping. According to the needs of the country and the government, we should actively publicize our country’s advantages and justice, and deeply expose and criticize the enemy’s sinister intentions and weak nature, so as to This will form a mainstream social opinion that victory is inevitable in a righteous war and those who dare to fight and win will create a good cognitive situation in order to deter opponents and win support. Through effective public opinion building, we can declare our determination and will to win, demonstrate adequate war preparations and strong military capabilities, influence, intervene and shape the cognitive psychology of the target, effectively stimulate our own confidence and morale, and dispel the enemy’s motivation. The will to resist, maximize the strategic initiative and popular support, firmly grasp the leadership of the war and the right to speak morally, so that the hostile party can realize the unbearable consequences, and then achieve the purpose of early deterrence and flexible control of the situation.
Pay close attention to legal disputes. War has always emphasized the importance of division and success. Mastering the power to define and interpret war in cognitive narratives, forming a consistent mainstream social opinion, condensing the value identity of the country or nation, and mobilizing a wide range of forces and resources are important goals for early cognitive domain operations. Providing a good narrative representation of justice and creating a social understanding that the master is famous, that justice is in our hands, and that the law is in our hands is a “sharp sword” that is unsheathed before the war, and a “heavy weapon” that is launched before the war. To this end, cognitive domain operations need to proactively create topics, try to characterize the war, justify the action, and do a good job in the narrative of “legitimate defense”, the definition of “forced legality”, and the interpretation of “last resort”, so as to defend the right to justice in war. become the mainstream opinion of society.
Using social media platforms to intervene in social cognition
The emergence of mobile, intelligent, and social information dissemination patterns has made network cognitive attack and defense an important means of cognitive domain operations. It has effectively expanded the accessibility and arrival rate of cognitive domain operations. Judging from the cognitive attack and defense in recent local wars, multi-level, multi-theme, and universal social media cognitive attack and defense can quickly mobilize public opinion and influence the direction of the war. It can not only form public opinion hot spots according to battlefield needs, It can trigger cognitive radical changes and can bypass the enemy’s public opinion blockade to implement cognitive penetration.
Dominate the direction of cognition with the help of information flow. Compared with traditional media, social media platforms are more interactive and have wider coverage. The decentralized “difference narrative” and the fragmented “personal narrative” of netizens are more likely to influence public opinion and interfere with social perception to a large extent. Know and judge. The display of the power of identity in the network society has a very important impact on changing the direction of public opinion, which also makes information flow an important variable in cognitive domain operations. In modern cognitive domain operations, the characteristics of “information weaponization” and “public opinion weaponization” are more prominent. Through data manipulation, current limiting, blocking and deletion, robot forwarding, etc., the information flow of social media can be effectively controlled and the formation of information can be formed in a short time. Public opinion hot spots and social consensus focus promote the formation of an “information waterfall” in which the public is swayed by mainstream public opinion, thereby solidifying their cognition.
Cognitive influence through public figures. To a certain extent, the more developed information dissemination is, the more attention is a scarce resource, and the more information that arouses the audience’s awareness needs to be carefully crafted and explored. In cognitive domain operations, how to attract the attention of the target audience with specific information has become the first step. The initiators of cognitive domain operations can put carefully packaged information on social media platforms through the voices of public figures such as Internet celebrities and top influencers, so as to attract the attention of target audiences and increase the visibility and reach of self-interested information. Rate. Information disseminated by public figures can suddenly emerge from the complex public opinion field, become a reference for people’s thinking, and become the mainstream opinion in inter-group interactions and circle-group interactions, thereby expanding the volume of one’s own propaganda, condemning and suppressing the other party’s propaganda, and guiding Shape the public to form qualitative cognition.
Use emerging technologies to empower cognitive offense and defense. Technology has changed the style of combat and greatly expanded the means of cognitive confrontation. For example, the emergence of emerging technologies such as algorithm push, intelligent voice, deep forgery, false reality, and augmented reality has enriched the selection of strategies and tools for cognitive domain operations to fully penetrate into society. In future cognitive domain operations, it will be possible to use intelligent monitoring systems to enhance cognitive situational awareness, use big data technology to accurately draw the cognitive picture of key groups, and use algorithm technology to continuously influence the cognitive thinking of target objects. The use of artificial intelligence technology to carry out saturated and precise cognitive attacks on specific audiences, the use of deep forgery technology to interfere with the enemy’s decision-making cognition, and the use of brain-computer interface, neuroscience and other technologies to directly affect military personnel will become a dominant force in influencing social cognition and It is an important means to determine the direction of public opinion and facilitate the achievement of combat objectives more directly and efficiently.
Keeping up with the progress of military operations affects social cognition
War practice shows that military operations play a key supporting role in shaping cognition. In modern warfare, military operations and cognitive attack and defense go hand in hand and work together. The two influence and support each other. The powerful shaping of the battlefield situation can greatly change social cognition, and the smooth deployment of military operations can promote radical changes in social cognition. , making it develop in the preset direction.
Collaborate with military deterrence operations to undermine public sentiment. Creating a favorable situation through military deterrence operations is an important part of war preparation and an effective means to improve the effectiveness of war. In cognitive domain operations, we must adhere to the synchronization of cognitive offensive and defensive operations with military operations to understand tasks, judge situations, synchronize research and planning, decision-making and deployment, and synchronize plans, arrangements, organization and implementation. We can skillfully use the deterrent effect of military operations to amplify the effects of cognitive attacks. To achieve the purpose of disintegrating the morale of the target audience. In the future, cognitive domain operations should be based on the simultaneous launch of military deterrence operations, fully release the information of military deterrence operations, and demonstrate one’s comprehensive strength, war potential, equipment performance, military and civilian will, etc. to the enemy through multiple means, thereby forming a positive influence on the enemy’s society and people Powerful deterrence and containment effect.
Combine the favorable battlefield situation to divide the camp. Changes in the battlefield situation often cause shocks in public opinion, which then spread and penetrate into society, creating a strong cognitive impact. Therefore, when implementing cognitive domain operations, we must have the courage to break through the stereotypes, design the goals and tasks of cognitive attacks in advance, combine the favorable situation on the battlefield, and use the powerful deterrent effect of military operations to stimulate cognitive changes in the target audience. If the war situation goes smoothly, we can further publicize and amplify the effectiveness of military operations, use public opinion to build momentum, create an atmosphere of intimidation that threatens to overwhelm the enemy, and force the enemy’s people to shake their confidence and give up their support.
Integrating military combat effectiveness softens the will. Use military operations to exert pressure and promote radical changes in social cognition. We must be good at seizing the effects of military operations to make a fuss about it, skillfully transform military victory into cognitive strength, and continuously strengthen the deterrent effect on cognitive attacks on target objects. . In the process of implementing cognitive domain operations, it is necessary to seamlessly embed cognitive domain operations into “hard destruction” and fully integrate military combat effectiveness to strengthen “soft kill” effects such as cognitive deterrence, cognitive interference, and cognitive destruction, and promote The psychological cognition of the people in the enemy’s society undergoes radical changes, which strengthens their fear of war and anti-war sentiments. They are then induced by the extended effect of combat effectiveness in a timely manner, prompting a series of adverse chain reactions within their society to soften their will to resist and their confidence in combat.
In the era of intelligence, intelligent algorithms, as the underlying logic and implementation means for information generation, distribution, dissemination, and reception, determine the form and presentation of information. In future wars, the expansion of the application boundaries of intelligent algorithms and the development of application scenarios will promote the update and iteration of cognitive domain combat tactics. Clarifying the mechanism and implementation path of intelligent algorithms and cognitive confrontation is of great significance for innovating cognitive domain combat tactics with the help of intelligent algorithms. .
The mechanism of how intelligent algorithms influence cognitive confrontation
Intelligent algorithms can formulate optimal information recommendation strategies through comprehensive analysis and calculation of users’ personal identity, psychological characteristics, behavioral habits, interests and preferences, etc., and then use specific information to affect target cognition, and ultimately affect their real-life behavior.
Draw a portrait of your target users. The essence of user portraits is to label users to form a specific identity. Tags are similar to “pixels” in digital portraits. The more comprehensive the data is obtained, the more precise the tag description will be, and the more realistic the reflection of user behavior characteristics will be. Foreign militaries believe that in cognitive domain operations, technical means such as web crawlers and log mining are widely used to obtain basic information data, financial data, communication data, etc. of target objects. On this basis, using intelligent algorithms to deeply mine these data can systematically analyze the interests, hobbies, behavioral habits, and interpersonal relationships of the target object, and then determine its value orientation. Afterwards, by constructing multi-dimensional label vectors, clustering similar individuals, and analyzing group characteristics with similar characteristics, a group target portrait can be formed, which can be used as the basis and starting point for cognitive shaping.
Achieve personalized information customization. Adopting “divide and conquer” for different individuals and groups is the advantage of intelligent algorithms, and it is also the proper meaning of cognitive shaping. Relying on social media platforms and search engines to carry out personalized push for specific objects can greatly improve the acceptance of the target objects and avoid idling and internal consumption of information during the dissemination process. In this process, the “information cocoon” effect will further narrow the target object’s perception range, leaving it in a relatively closed information environment for a long time, thus actively accepting one-sided information. At the same time, homogeneous information will further strengthen the shaping effect. Under the combined effect of convergence psychology and group pressure, the target object may gradually lose basic logic and value judgment capabilities, thus subtly forming the cognition carefully set by the initiator. .
Demonstrate specific real-life behaviors. Cognition is the premise of behavior, and behavior reacts on cognition. Intelligent algorithms can constrain and induce real-life behavior by directional shaping of the stance and value tendencies of specific objects on political, military operations, social and other issues. The foreign military believes that by disseminating special ideas to the public, it can lead to social disorder and loss of control. For key individuals, through strategies such as controlling the brain, attacking the heart, and seizing the will, they will make mistakes in their judgment of the country’s strategic direction, doubt the war decision-making, and be negative and pessimistic about the direction of the war, thus producing the effect of “conquering the enemy without fighting.” Practice has proven that target cognitive orientation reshaping highlights specific real-life behaviors, and dynamic changes in real-life behaviors trigger real-time adjustments to user portraits, which in turn drives the adjustment and update of recommendation strategies, forming a complete closed feedback loop.
Intelligent algorithms influence the implementation path of cognitive confrontation
Intelligent algorithms have the characteristics of encapsulation and transplantation, data sharing, fast calculation, autonomous learning, etc., and there is a natural fit between them and cognitive confrontation.
Promote the coupling of confrontational forms of peace and war. The dissemination of information across time boundaries leads to conflicts in cognitive space at all times, and the time scale may vary from seconds to decades. In peacetime, the most important characteristics of cognitive confrontation tactics are concealment and long-term nature, while in wartime they are suppressive and urgent. Intelligent algorithms can further promote the coupling of peace and war in the form of cognitive confrontation through information sharing, situation updating and strategy inheritance. Based on peacetime information and wartime intelligence, comprehensive analysis and judgment of the enemy’s situation, our situation, and the battlefield environment can be automatically calculated to draw conclusions on the strengths, weaknesses, key points, and difficulties of the confrontation; based on mathematical modeling and machine learning, combined with Cognitive confrontation results and real-time battlefield situation in peacetime, and after comprehensive evaluation, optimal tactics and plans can be proposed.
Promote the combination of explicit and implicit means of confrontation. Cognitive domain operations are filled with massive and complex information in various formats and with varying strengths and weaknesses, which not only brings challenges to one’s own identification and processing, but also provides convenient conditions for confusing the opponent. Only through cognitive fusion can a comprehensive, timely and accurate judgment of the situation be formed, and then the advantages of global perception be transformed into decision-making and action advantages. Comprehensive multi-channel information for intelligent analysis and comparison, comprehensive research and judgment, can identify erroneous information, filter useless information, screen false information, and provide information support for commanders’ decision-making. For example, explicit means can be used for cognitive deterrence and will disintegration, implicit means can be used for cognitive deception and cognitive induction, and explicit and implicit means can be used for cognitive confusion.
Promote global integration of confrontation space. The cognitive confrontation space not only covers the physical domain space including land, sea, air, space, etc., but also covers the information domain space and cognitive domain space such as electromagnetic and network. Cognitive confrontation is a global fusion confrontation. Battlefield data is generated extremely quickly and in huge volumes, which places extremely high requirements on computing speed and capabilities. Relying on traditional manual calculations and computer-aided calculations can no longer meet the needs of battlefield space fusion. Semi-automatic or even automated fusion calculations must be achieved with the help of the high efficiency, strong computing power and high accuracy of intelligent algorithms. Relying on intelligent algorithms, vertical integration from cognitive perception to cognitive analysis to cognitive decision-making can be achieved; horizontally, multi-dimensional situation, power, decision-making, and scheduling across the physical domain, information domain, and cognitive domain can be achieved. Domain fusion.
(Author’s unit: National University of Defense Technology)
Cognitive domain operations, as an ancient but emerging military practice, continue to develop in the wave of the world’s new military revolution. Constructing our military’s cognitive domain combat science is of positive significance to building a world-class military.
Statement of the Problem
Cognitive domain warfare has existed since ancient times and has almost run through thousands of years of human war history. It’s just that there was no such thing as cognitive domain warfare at that time. Instead, it was called “mind attack” and “mental warfare” by military strategists. In the 20th century, with the development of science and technology, cognitive domain operations have unique advantages, showing the characteristics of “fighting at all times and without declaring war”. Cognitive domain operations have become the ultimate domain of great power games and military confrontations, and are the highest level of modern war control.
The development of military science has its own inherent laws. The construction of our military’s cognitive domain combat science is a process that follows the development laws of military science. First of all, cognitive domain operations have strong characteristics of the times. With the development of science and technology, especially the application of science and technology such as biology, medicine, artificial intelligence, and information communication in the field of warfare, the ways to control people’s will, thinking, psychology, emotions and other cognitive systems have become more diverse and flexible. Secondly, cognitive domain operations have become the main battlefield of modern warfare. Recent local wars, especially the Russia-Ukraine conflict, have shown a new style of cognitive domain operations – cognitive domain operations have entered the war stage as an independent domain and have Established a certain theoretical and material basis.
The report of the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China proposed to build the People’s Army into a world-class army by the middle of this century. To build a world-class military, it is necessary to enrich the basic connotation of “first-class” and enhance the value standard of “first-class”, and cognitive factors are indispensable elements. By constructing cognitive domain operations science, it is conducive to accelerating the overall reshaping of the military organizational form under the guidance of cognitive domain operations theory; it is conducive to correctly understanding the characteristics and laws of cognitive domain operations, and accelerating the development, utilization and implementation of cognitive domain operations means. The pace of improvement is conducive to actively taking effective measures and innovating techniques, tactics and styles of cognitive domain operations.
connotation and denotation
The advanced combat theory is an important indicator of the strength of an army’s combat effectiveness. To build our military’s cognitive domain combat science, we insist on putting ourselves first and innovating independently. On the one hand, we are based on our country’s reality, inherit and carry forward the profound wisdom of Chinese military science and our military’s unique political advantages, and at the same time, actively absorb the essence of foreign military culture.
Conceptual definition of cognitive domain warfare research. The fresh content and new characteristics of cognitive domain operations determine the new nature of cognitive domain operations science. As the core support of cognitive domain warfare, it is first necessary to clarify some key concepts of cognitive domain warfare research. One is about “cognition”. Cognition refers to the process by which the human brain or people use cognitive tools to receive, encode, store, exchange, retrieve, extract and use information. It is the subjective construction of information by cognitive subjects. This process can be broken down into four parts: perception, memory, control and reaction. The corresponding cognitive system can also be divided into four systems: perception, memory, control and reaction. The second is about the “cognitive domain”. With the introduction of the concept of “cognition” into the military field, modern warfare has formed three major combat dimensions: the physical domain, the information domain, and the cognitive domain. The cognitive domain has become the next two warring parties after land, sea, air, space, electricity, and network. Another space for competition. Usually manifested in the quality and ability of combat personnel, the cohesion of the troops, combat experience and training level, battlefield situation awareness, and social public opinion. The third is about “cognitive domain operations.” Compared with operations in the physical domain and information domain, the space involved in cognitive domain operations is wider. Its essence is to capture people’s will, belief, and psychology through actions in the physical domain, use of the information domain, and offense and defense in the cognitive domain. , thinking and other dominance, it is a complex collection of traditional public opinion warfare, psychological warfare, legal warfare, political warfare, economic warfare, cultural warfare and other means, in order to achieve the strategic goal of “complete victory” of defeating the enemy without fighting. .
The main content of cognitive domain combat science research. Cognitive domain warfare is a theory that studies the development laws of war spirit. It is an applied science that uses the results of cognitive science to study cognitive offensive and defensive operations in war. It takes all cognitive domain combat phenomena at all times and at home and abroad as the research object, and mainly studies the following contents: First, the historical theory of cognitive domain combat. In wars in history, the glorious idea and rich practice of “attacking the heart first, attacking the city first” has long been established. Disrupting enemy forces is included in the three major principles of our military’s political work. Capturing generals and transforming prisoners has become a unique front in the armed struggle led by the party, writing a glorious chapter in the history of the people’s army. This precious historical heritage should be further explored and passed on from today’s height. The second is the basic theory of cognitive domain operations. It is the cornerstone for the establishment, survival and development of a discipline, and plays a leading and foundational role in the research of this discipline. Only by pursuing in-depth and thorough research, clarifying basic issues, and smoothing out various relationships can we establish a systematic, solid, and effective basic theoretical system, and then provide strong guidance for the practice of cognitive domain operations. The third is the cognitive domain combat application theory. This is the core of cognitive domain operations research and an important theoretical basis for guiding the military’s cognitive domain operations practice. Its research must be practical, innovative, and lively. Only by closely integrating theoretical research with the combat education and training practice in the cognitive domain of the troops and the actual future combat can we form a scientific, forward-looking, operational and practical system. The cognitive domain combat application theoretical system can better serve the practice of military struggle.
The disciplinary basis of cognitive domain warfare research. To build a discipline system for cognitive domain warfare, it is not enough to merely establish its status as an independent discipline and find its position in the discipline of military science. In order to have a complete and in-depth understanding of cognitive domain warfare and to better carry out theoretical research, it is necessary to clarify the relationship between cognitive domain warfare and related disciplines. The first is cognitive domain combat science and military science. Cognitive domain operations revolve around the goals and tasks of military operations, closely coordinate with the process of military operations, and are objectively governed by the laws revealed by military theory. Therefore, it is necessary to carefully study the inner connection between cognitive domain warfare and military theory, and strive to find the theoretical resonance behind practice. The second is cognitive domain combat science and supporting disciplines. Cognitive domain combat science is a highly professional military practice activity. According to my country’s discipline classification model and standards, the results of journalism, communication, psychology, law and other disciplines are the most basic theoretical sources for the construction and actual combat application of cognitive domain combat forces. Together they form the professional field of cognitive domain combat science. Provide direct theoretical support. The third is cognitive domain combat science and related disciplines. The theoretical categories involved in human mental and psychological activities all have a direct impact or indirect relationship with cognitive domain operations. The theoretical understanding of political science, sociology, culture and other related disciplines is extensive, and the role of cognitive domain operations is will be bigger, this requires us to study the relevant disciplines of cognitive domain warfare and actively expand the theoretical thinking of cognitive domain warfare.
How to build
A new round of world military revolution has pushed cognitive domain operations onto the “fast track” of rapid development. Looking at the recent local wars, especially the Russia-Ukraine conflict, all have been branded as cognitive domain operations, and their status and role have become increasingly prominent. At the same time, the preliminary research results achieved by domestic and foreign scholars have laid a good foundation for the construction of cognitive domain combat science. It can be said that the time is basically ripe for theoretical abstraction on the basis of practice to build our military’s cognitive domain combat science.
The construction of any theoretical system must follow certain logical rules. According to the conditions for constructing the cognitive domain combat science discipline system, the following rules should be followed: First, unify the concept. In the cognitive domain combat theoretical system framework, complex and confusing concepts should not be used to ensure that judgments and conclusions are based on accurate concepts. According to the way our military’s operational regulations deal with relevant concepts, the unified concept of “cognitive domain operations” should be selected as the relative concept for building the discipline system of cognitive domain operations. The second is to clarify the logical starting point. The basic thinking point for studying the theory of cognitive domain operations is to “seize control of cognitive space.” “Seizing control of cognitive space” has a high degree of abstraction and level in the theoretical system of cognitive domain operations, and making it clear will facilitate the formation, development and application of cognitive domain operations science. The third is to find the correct subject positioning. What position cognitive domain warfare science should occupy in the military science discipline system is an important issue that must be solved when studying cognitive domain warfare science and military science. Objectively speaking, if cognitive domain warfare has entered the discipline system structure of military science, it can be positioned by directly adding it or by linking it to relevant disciplines.
Constructing cognitive domain combat science is a relatively complex system project with a long way to go. We can focus on leadership institutions, team building, academic achievements, etc. to provide reliable guarantee for the construction of cognitive domain combat science disciplines. The first is to establish a leadership organization. Under the direct leadership of the commanding authority, an authoritative organization for the research and formulation of the cognitive domain warfare discipline system with the participation of the commanding authority, experts in various fields, and military leaders will be established to be responsible for the research, demonstration, and overall planning of the cognitive domain warfare discipline system. The second is to strengthen team building. The key and core of building a discipline is the construction of academic teams. It is necessary to strengthen the construction of professional teams for cognitive domain warfare research and provide talent support for the construction and improvement of cognitive domain warfare disciplines. Through training and academic exchanges, we will improve the research quality and capabilities of existing researchers and introduce leaders in this discipline who have profound academic attainments, rigorous scholarship, and innovative academic ideas. The third is to launch academic results. Give full play to the enthusiasm and creativity of existing cognitive domain warfare researchers, increase research efforts, and continue to publish high-quality cognitive domain warfare theoretical research and application research works, teaching materials and academic papers, laying a solid foundation for building the cognitive domain warfare discipline. Solid academic foundation.
