With the dawn of the intelligent era, artificial intelligence is approaching at a speed beyond people’s imagination, not only impacting all walks of life, but also changing our understanding and concepts. As a field that is inherently sensitive to technological changes, the military development and application of artificial intelligence is booming.
Currently, with the rapid development of information technology, sensors, big data and the Internet of Things, the military application of artificial intelligence is ushering in a new round of opportunities. Penetrating into all fields of military applications, artificial intelligence weapons and equipment with efficient command, precise strike, automated operation and intelligent behavior will contribute unique “machine intelligence and power” to the future battlefield.
Engels once said that the application of cutting-edge technology first began in the military field. When new technologies significantly enhance military combat capabilities, they will lead to new military changes. Traditional military powers such as the United States and Russia foresee the broad application prospects of artificial intelligence technology in the military field. They all regard artificial intelligence as a disruptive technology that “changes the rules of the war game” and believe that future wars will be intelligent wars and future armaments. The competition will be an intelligent arms race, and has been planned in advance, hoping to seize the opportunity of artificial intelligence military applications and strive to create a “generation gap” with potential opponents. A few months ago, U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense Shanahan officially issued a memorandum on the establishment of a “Joint Artificial Intelligence Center”, which will further increase the application of artificial intelligence in U.S. military military projects. Russia also regards artificial intelligence as the commanding heights of future military competition, and is stepping up the development of humanoid robots that can drive vehicles and the formation of robot troops that can fight side by side with human soldiers.
It should be noted that the military application of artificial intelligence is a “double-edged sword.” “It may become the best thing that has ever happened to mankind, or it may become the worst thing.” Hawking’s evaluation of artificial intelligence enlightens us to maintain sufficient caution in the face of the “menacing” military applications of artificial intelligence. careful. In the future, as a large number of intelligent unmanned systems are used on the battlefield, the cost of war will be greatly reduced, and “zero casualties” of combatants are expected to become a reality. This can easily lead to more casual use of force by military powers. In a complex battlefield environment, highly intelligent unmanned combat systems are very likely to encounter problems such as recognition errors, communication degradation, and even “defection and counterattack” after enemy electromagnetic and network attacks. Indiscriminate killing of innocent people and loss of control of the system are even more likely to occur. It brings endless worries to the military application of smart weapons.
It can be seen that major issues related to war must not be easily left to machines to make decisions. Even if the military application of artificial intelligence becomes increasingly mature, we cannot allow the “barbaric growth” of smart weapons. We need to be alert to the security and safety risks that artificial intelligence may bring. Legal, ethical and many other issues. Social security supervision and control should be strengthened to form a social governance model adapted to the era of artificial intelligence; actively participate in discussions and negotiations on international arms control of artificial intelligence, and contribute Chinese wisdom and Chinese solutions to the security, legal and ethical issues brought by artificial intelligence; firmly establish The idea that humans are the leaders in the human-machine relationship enables safe and effective control of artificial intelligence and allows it to serve the peaceful development of mankind, rather than letting artificial intelligence become an “accomplice of the devil.”
Regarding this technological form that is expected to profoundly change the form of future warfare, we must not only keep a clear mind, but also fully stimulate its vitality. Judging from the history of military changes, science and technology have played a stimulating and basic supporting role in previous changes. Whoever has the sensitivity to technological changes and achieves technological breakthroughs first can master the new rules of war and control the war. The commanding heights to win future wars. For an army, the inability to correctly predict the direction of military technological breakthroughs and grasp changes in war patterns will not only lead to “technological generational differences”, but also lead to crises such as core capabilities and national security.
Today, in the face of “big changes” and “big breakthroughs” in the development of science and technology, we should deeply grasp the intrinsic driving influence of artificial intelligence on the evolution of war forms from the perspective of designing wars and mastering the rules of victory, and truly seize the initiative to win future wars. We need to firmly grasp the major historical opportunities for the development of artificial intelligence, do a good job in strategic planning, highlight the goal traction and planning leadership of intelligence, closely track cutting-edge technologies, and take proactive actions to effectively safeguard national security.
A brief analysis of cognitive domain combat styles in the era of intelligence
As modern warfare accelerates towards intelligence, the bottom physical domain, the middle information domain and the top cognitive domain are characterized by multi-domain linkage. Cognitive domain operations are gradually becoming the focus of the war arena. The main purpose of cognitive domain operations is to seize brain control and lay a solid foundation for seizing land, sea, air, space, and network power. Accurately grasping and fully utilizing the main modes of cognitive domain operations is an inevitable requirement to seize opportunities and gain the initiative in future wars.
1. Cognitive electronic warfare – the “tentacles” of cognitive warfare
Cognitive electronic warfare is the product of the combination of electronic warfare and artificial intelligence technology. It is the main combat style for fighting for electromagnetic control and is also a model of the integration of tactics and technology. The United States is the first country to carry out cognitive electronic warfare research. Its Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and the Army, Navy and Air Force have carried out projects including adaptive radar countermeasures and adaptive electronic warfare behavioral learning. Implementing cognitive electronic warfare requires focusing on three aspects.
One is cognitive electronic reconnaissance. It mainly uses electronic means to quickly, accurately and comprehensively obtain battlefield data, promptly discover threat signals, identify target characteristic signals, establish and dynamically update signal databases, and provide necessary information for commanders to judge situations, make decisions, and evaluate effectiveness. support.
The second is cognitive electronic modeling. Mainly in view of the characteristics of various types, large power and large number of electromagnetic radiation sources in the battlefield and surrounding areas, the frequency, bandwidth, waveform characteristics, protection mode, arrival direction and other information of the radiation source are distinguished between dynamic and static categories, and a unified system is established. The information describes the model architecture, thereby providing the basis for electromagnetic perception.
The third is cognitive electronic interference. Mainly in view of the complex and diverse characteristics of battlefield electronic warfare equipment and strong anti-interference capabilities, it combines active interference with passive interference, suppression interference and deception interference, and flexibly implements adaptive interference pattern decision-making, adaptive interference waveform optimization and adaptive interference. Interference resource scheduling to ensure interference quality and efficiency.
2. Cognitive intelligence warfare—the “bloodline” of cognitive warfare
The International Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers once proposed the concept of “cognitive information science”; some domestic scholars define cognitive information science as the study of people’s cognitive structures, processes and characteristics in all aspects of information production and utilization from a psychological perspective field or discipline. The concept of “cognitive intelligence warfare” is proposed here, which is consistent with cognitive logic and the nature of intelligence, and can borrow concepts and principles from cognitive intelligence science. Depending on the motivation for obtaining and using intelligence, three strategies can be used to implement cognitive intelligence warfare.
The first is to obtain and utilize intelligence based on individual cognition. It mainly uses the cognition of combat subjects as an intermediary for intelligence coordination, adheres to battlefield user-driven rather than combat system-driven, and is based on “meaning construction theory” and “knowledge abnormality hypothesis” to improve the cognitive structure of intelligence service subjects and realize subject cognition. Positive interaction between knowledge and intelligence services.
The second is to obtain and utilize intelligence based on group cognition. It mainly focuses on the common cognitive structure formed by factors such as the battlefield environment and social background of the user group, and makes full use of advanced analysis methods such as situation analysis, domain analysis, and value analysis to strive to improve the pertinence and applicability of group intelligence services. sex.
The third is to obtain and utilize intelligence based on brain-body cognition. It mainly understands the cognitive structure and cognitive activities of the human brain as computing logic and computing activities, makes full use of machine intelligent cognition and intelligent computing capabilities, strives to improve the human-machine integration environment on the battlefield, and smoothes the information link from intelligence to cognition. Implement programmed and large-scale intelligence services.
3. Cognitive algorithm warfare—the “brain” of cognitive warfare
In 2017, the U.S. Department of Defense officially proposed “algorithmic warfare” for the first time in a memorandum and clearly established an “algorithmic warfare cross-functional team.” Algorithmic warfare, like cognitive warfare, runs through the entire process of all fields of warfare, embodying the core requirements of intelligent warfare. The concept of “cognitive algorithmic warfare” is proposed here based on the similarities and intrinsic connections between cognitive warfare and algorithmic warfare. It can be said that there is algorithm in cognition, and cognition in algorithm. There are three main paths to implement cognitive algorithmic warfare.
The first is to clarify the fog of war. Military theorist Clausewitz pointed out, “War is a field full of uncertainty, and three-quarters of the situations on which war is based are as if hidden in fog.” Cognitive algorithm warfare is to calculate deterministic factors in this uncertain field, clarify the fog of the battlefield as much as possible, accurately identify information “bombs”, and strictly prevent falling into information “traps”.
The second is to clear up the blind spots of intelligence. The source of inspiration for artificial intelligence often comes from biological intelligence, especially human intelligence. Artificial intelligence is inseparable from human intelligence. Cognitive algorithm warfare is to make full use of the latest achievements in cognitive psychology and cognitive neuroscience to promote the military application of artificial intelligence and improve the intelligence level of the cognitive domain.
The third is to accelerate human-machine integration. Although machine computing power can surpass human brain power, machine algorithms cannot surpass human “ideas” after all. Artificial intelligence and human intelligence each have their own advantages. Cognitive algorithm warfare is to closely integrate machine algorithms in the information domain with human “ideas” in the cognitive domain, and continuously improve the level of warfare in the physical domain.
4. Cognitive political warfare—the “soul” of cognitive warfare
Political war is the opposite of military war. Mao Zedong once vividly pointed out that “war is bloody politics” and “politics is bloodless war.” Since political warfare usually directly affects the cognitive domain, cognitive political warfare can be said to be the inherent meaning of political warfare and should not be understood as a new concept. There are three forms of cognitive political warfare in the era of intelligence.
One is psychological attack and defense. The main purpose is to use intelligent and precise means to “read the mind” and “control the mind” to improve the quality and effectiveness of psychological attack and defense. On the offensive side, we mainly use psychological propaganda, will disintegration, emotional influence, mental induction and other tactics; on the defensive side, we mainly adopt measures such as psychological education and training, psychological counseling and regulation, and psychological diagnosis and treatment.
The second is the competition for public opinion. The main purpose is to use new media and new technologies to enhance the popularity, flow and influence of public opinion propaganda. In terms of offense, the focus is on taking the lead, being the first to take advantage of the situation, concentrating on building momentum and forming a strong force, attacking key points, and making key breakthroughs; in terms of defense, the focus is on making the best use of the situation, combining prevention with counter-attacks, and seeking advantages and avoiding disadvantages.
The third is the legal struggle. The main thing is to participate in legislation, accurately interpret the law, actively protect the law, stand up for the law, be tit-for-tat, and get to the point. On the offensive side, we mainly use legal deterrence, legal strikes, legal restraints, legal sanctions and other tactics; on the defensive side, we mainly strengthen the research on international law, especially the law of war, and legal protection of law-related actions to prevent others from being manipulated.
Cognition-centered warfare: operational concepts for dealing with complex wars
Complexity science is one of the frontier fields of contemporary scientific development. It is a new tool for understanding, understanding, and exploring the phenomena, laws, and mechanisms of war. As the form of war evolves from information war to intelligent war, the complexity of war shows an exponential growth trend, and it becomes increasingly difficult to seize control of information. The key to combat is to put the enemy into a “decision-making dilemma” so that it can even Even with information superiority, it cannot make correct decisions, thus losing its combat advantage. The focus of operations will change from “information-centered” to “cognition-centered”, and the winning mechanism will change from “information winning” to “cognitive winning”.
“Three changes” reveal the driving forces behind the increasing complexity of war
War is a field full of possibilities, and change is the basic characteristic that runs through it. President Xi stressed that we must pay close attention to changes in technology, war, and opponents. Changes in science and technology are the foundation, changes in war are the subject, and changes in opponents are the key. Changes in science and technology lead to changes in war, and changes in war prompt changes in opponents. The “three changes” have promoted the evolution of war forms, the expansion of war fields, the transformation of war goals, and the expansion of war influence, revealing the driving forces behind the growth of war complexity.
Technological changes have subverted the basis for winning wars. Science and technology are the core combat effectiveness and the most active and revolutionary factor in military development. Throughout the history of the world’s military development, every major scientific and technological innovation has started a new military revolution, and every military revolution has pushed military development into a new era. Scientific and technological innovation has become a huge engine to improve the military’s combat effectiveness. . At present, a new round of scientific and technological revolution and military revolution are accelerating. The degree of informatization of modern warfare is constantly increasing, and the characteristics of intelligence are becoming increasingly apparent. The role of driving the military revolution is becoming more and more prominent. The rapid development of some cutting-edge technologies may fundamentally change the face of war and war. According to the rules, the military game between great powers is more embodied in technological subversion and counter-subversion, raids and counter-raids, offsets and counter-offsets.
The U.S. Navy’s “Nemesis” project includes reconnaissance, decoy, jamming and other systems. The decoy system covers air, surface and underwater. Under the scheduling and control of the distributed artificial intelligence engine, it can complement each other, coordinate deception, and truly create a A “ghost aircraft carrier formation” completely subverted traditional electronic deception methods and raised information deception to an unprecedented level. It can be said that science and technology has never had such a profound impact on the overall situation of national security and military strategy as it does today. It has profoundly intervened in, supported, and dominated the evolution of war forms and the innovation of combat styles, and has even subverted the mechanism of winning wars.
The U.S. Navy’s “Nemesis” project is based on networked collaborative electronic warfare
Concept, integrating different systems and utilizing unmanned distributed Clusters of electronic warfare platforms enable large-scale collaborative electronic warfare
The changes in war highlight the complexity of war.
Modern warfare is undergoing profound changes, showing unprecedented diversity and complexity. This super complexity stems from many reasons: first, various advanced technologies or weapons are constantly emerging, bringing many uncertainties; second, the battlefield covers land, sea, air, space, network, electricity and cognitive and other multiple third, multiple combat objects, combat styles, combat areas, and combat methods are cross-correlated and combined to form a complex “hybrid war”; fourth, artificial intelligence algorithms build a large number of combat elements into a complex logic, and use human Machine speed beyond the reach of thinking prompts the combination, deconstruction, and recombination of various elements. In the Ukraine crisis in 2022, on the surface it is a confrontation between Russia and Ukraine, but in essence it is a “hybrid war” between the United States and Western countries and Russia; the Russian and Ukrainian armies extensively use military and civilian drones to expand The “unmanned +” application model shows the prototype of future unmanned intelligent operations; with the support of U.S. NATO air and space situational intelligence, the Ukrainian army frequently uses low-cost unmanned equipment to carry out raids on important Russian weapons platforms, highlighting its new qualities Combat forces have asymmetric attack advantages against large weapons and equipment in traditional combat systems. Changes in technology will eventually lead to changes in war. The impact of a single element on war will become weaker and weaker. The joint combat system composed of multiple elements will have a complex impact on war. War is non-linear, uncertain, chaotic and open. Complex characteristics such as adaptability and confrontation will increase exponentially, which will make it more difficult for people to judge the progress and outcome of the war.
Changes in opponents accelerate the growth of war complexity.
Changes in war prompt changes in opponents. Currently, we are experiencing major changes unseen in a century. Major military powers are actively making strategic adjustments and promoting a new round of military reforms, which exhibit the following characteristics: first, the trend of joint, miniaturized, and autonomous institutional establishments has become more obvious; second, The first is that weapons and equipment are showing a development trend of digitization, precision, stealth, unmanned, and intelligence; the third is that the combat form is moving towards the “four nons” (non-contact, non-linear, asymmetric and irregular) and the “three nos” (Invisible, silent, unmanned) combat; fourth, the military command form is developing in the direction of flattening, automation, networking, and seamlessness. The United States regards China as its main strategic opponent and strives to suppress and contain China. It has vigorously strengthened the innovation of operational concepts and has successively proposed new operational concepts such as “hybrid warfare”, “multi-domain warfare” and “mosaic warfare”, claiming that it will fight to defeat its opponents. A high-end war in which “technology cannot be understood, strikes are difficult to predict, and speed cannot keep up.” The core of the US military’s “mosaic warfare” is unmanned, low-cost, fast, lethal, flexible and reconfigurable. It is based on distributed situational awareness, with the help of intelligent auxiliary decision-making tools and the concept of building blocks and jigsaw puzzles to adaptively formulate mission planning. , dynamically reorganize combat forces, decompose the functions of the combat platform into a larger number of single-function nodes, and build a combat system with a large number of functional nodes. Replace the “kill chain” with a “kill network”. Several nodes will fail or be missing, and the combat system can be adaptively reorganized.
The increasing complexity of war drives the transformation of the winning mechanism of war
With the rapid development of national defense science and technology, the upgrading of weapons and equipment, and the rapid evolution of war forms, modern warfare has shown exponential and explosive complex changes. These changes may seem dazzling, but there are rules to follow behind them. The fundamental thing is that the winning mechanism of war has changed. Only by thoroughly understanding the winning mechanism of modern war can we accurately recognize changes, respond scientifically, be good at seeking change, and firmly grasp the initiative in future wars.
The form of war has changed from cold weapon warfare to intelligent warfare.
The shape of war is a holistic understanding of war. So far, human war has generally gone through four historical stages: cold weapon war, hot weapon war, mechanized war, and information war, and is moving towards intelligent warfare. The history of cognitive warfare is almost as old as the history of human warfare. In the era of cold weapon war, hot weapon war, and mechanized war, cognitive warfare appears more in the form of public opinion warfare and psychological warfare. As mankind enters the information age, the development of cyberspace technology has greatly expanded the space for cognitive warfare, enriched the technical means of cognitive warfare, and greatly enhanced the permeability, timeliness, and deterrence of cognitive warfare. The status and role of Zhizhan have been unprecedentedly improved. In the future, the form of war will enter intelligent warfare, and a large number of intelligent weapon systems and platforms will be equipped with the military and put into combat. Cognitive warfare can not only interfere with and deceive the cognition of enemy personnel, but also attack the cognition of smart equipment through algorithm deception methods such as “adversarial input” and “data poisoning”. Its application scenarios and scope will be further expanded. , the status and role will be further improved.
The purpose of war has changed from conquering by force to conquering by spirit.
The winning mechanism of modern war has undergone great changes compared with the past. The violence of war has been curbed, and the purpose of combat has changed from the original siege of cities and territories and annihilation of the enemy’s effective forces to making the opponent obey one’s will. The means of combat have shifted from military conquest to focusing more on psychological and spiritual conquest, which has made cognitive warfare increasingly prominent in its status and role in modern warfare. In recent years, “hybrid warfare” has become a major means of great power competition. More and more countries have begun to focus on using new fields and new means to achieve political, military, and economic goals that are difficult to achieve with traditional warfare. “Hybrid war” is a mixture of war subjects such as states, non-state actors and individuals, a mixture of conventional warfare, unconventional warfare and other war styles, a mixture of military operations such as combat, stability maintenance and reconstruction, and a mixture of political, military and economic The mixture of multiple fields such as military and people’s livelihood is a mixture of multiple combat goals such as defeating the enemy and winning the hearts and minds of the people. This is highly consistent with cognitive warfare. The operational field of “hybrid warfare” has expanded from the military field to politics, economy, culture, people’s livelihood and other fields; the combat methods have expanded from firepower warfare and troop warfare to diplomatic warfare, economic warfare, cyber warfare, psychological warfare, public opinion warfare and other directions. This is highly consistent with cognitive warfare. Its core essence is to “make profit out of chaos”, its main purpose is to win people’s hearts, and its combat guidance is to win by cleverness.
The winning domain of war changes from the physical domain and information domain to the cognitive domain.
Modern war occurs in three fields: physics, information and cognition at the same time. The physical domain and information domain are separated from the material domain, and the cognitive domain is separated from the spiritual domain. The physical domain is a traditional war domain, consisting of combat platforms and military facilities, which provides the material basis for information warfare. The information domain is a newly emerging war field, that is, the space for information generation, transmission and sharing, and is the focus of information warfare competition. Cognitive domain is the scope and field involved in human cognitive activities. It is not only the space for human feeling, perception, memory and thinking activities, but also the space for knowledge generation, exchange, association, storage and application. It is also the space for perception, judgment and decision-making in combat activities. and spaces of command and control. The cognitive domain exists in the field of consciousness of combatants and affects their judgment and decision-making. It is a rising field of warfare. With the development of technologies such as network information and artificial intelligence, the scope of the cognitive domain has greatly expanded, and is expanding from the field of human consciousness to the field of modern cognitive tools and artificial intelligence. The development of military technology has expanded the scope of the cognitive domain, providing more advanced, faster, and more effective material and technical means for cognitive warfare, greatly enhancing the permeability, timeliness, and deterrence of cognitive warfare, and fundamentally It has changed cognitive warfare, making the cognitive domain a new winning field that transcends the physical domain and information domain, and has become the ultimate domain for great power games and military confrontations.
The mechanism for winning wars changes from information victory to cognitive victory.
War confrontation is ultimately a game and confrontation of cognition. If you have the right to control cognition, you will have the initiative in war to a large extent. If you lose the right to control cognition, you will be passive in the war. The situation of being beaten. Obtaining higher and stronger control rights is the key to defeating powerful enemies. Finding ways to control cognitive power and then seize comprehensive battlefield control, so as to achieve maximum victory at the minimum cost, is an important mechanism and inherent law of modern warfare, especially cognitive warfare. In recent years, the U.S. military has successively proposed new concepts of future warfare represented by “decision-centered warfare” and “mosaic warfare”, intending to use complexity as a weapon to create multiple dilemmas for opponents, requiring it to ensure its own tactical “selective advantage”. At the same time, by creating highly complex decision-making influences on the enemy and interfering with its decision-making capabilities, it can achieve a subversive advantage over the enemy in the cognitive domain. In the primary and intermediate stages of information warfare, the key to combat is to seize network control and information control, which runs through the progressive model of “network advantage → information advantage → decision-making advantage → combat advantage”. After information warfare enters an advanced stage, it becomes more and more difficult to seize control of information. The key to combat is to make the enemy fall into a “decision-making dilemma” so that even if it has information superiority, it cannot make correct decisions, thereby losing its combat advantage and having recognition. Only by knowing the advantages can you have the combat advantage. In future wars, cognitive advantage will be the most important strategic advantage, and cognitive confrontation will be the most important form of confrontation. It can be said that “without cognition, there is no war.”
Coping with complex wars has given rise to the concept of cognitive-centered warfare
In order to cope with the exponential growth trend of the complexity characteristics of modern warfare, we must use the theories and methods of complexity science to change the concept of platform-centered warfare where firepower is supreme and killing is king, and establish a cognitive-centered combat thinking. Cognition-centered warfare refers to taking the cognitive domain as the winning area, taking the cognitive advantage as the operational goal, and focusing on interfering with cognitive means, suppressing cognitive channels, affecting cognitive production, and conducting cognitive operations on enemy personnel and intelligent equipment. Interference, suppression, deception and inducement are a new operational concept that obtains combat advantages by seizing and maintaining cognitive advantages. Its main winning mechanisms are as follows.
Use cyber deterrence to destroy the enemy’s will to fight.
Targeting at the enemy’s political, economic, military, diplomatic, and cultural contradictions and weaknesses, disseminate deterrent information through cyberspace, or publish military parades, large-scale military exercises, new weapons and equipment research and development and other information through the Internet , causing great fear and shock to the opponent’s cognition and psychology, and deterring the enemy is not conducive to the implementation of my actions. Comprehensive use of network and electricity attack methods to carry out point strikes and warning attacks against the enemy’s important network and electricity targets and key core nodes, destroying the enemy’s system combat capabilities, affecting the normal performance of the enemy’s weapons and equipment, and providing psychological deterrence to the enemy. The US military’s “gray zone operations” theory relies on its own technological advantages and mainly takes actions such as cyber and electronic countermeasures to respond to the opponent’s “gray zone provocation” and deter the opponent from giving up “confrontation” or escalating the conflict, putting it in a dilemma.
Use information deception to induce the enemy to make wrong judgments.
Aiming at the enemy’s reconnaissance equipment, intelligence agencies and command systems, conceal one’s military intentions, military operations and military objectives through cyber attacks, electronic deception and other means, and transmit to the enemy errors and information about one’s own False information on combat intentions, troop configurations, combat capabilities, combat plans, and battlefield situations, or use the enemy’s command information system to send false orders and information to induce the enemy to make wrong judgments and disrupt the enemy’s combat command. Implement new attacks such as “adversarial input” and “data poisoning” against artificial intelligence algorithms, allowing them to obtain preset conclusions through deep learning training, or causing them to fall into local optimal solutions and ignore the global optimal. Use technologies such as computer imaging, video synthesis, virtual reality, and artificial intelligence to synthesize sounds, videos, images, text information, etc., or use “deep fake” technology to generate false information that is difficult to distinguish between true and false and transmit it through the Internet Spread in large quantities to confuse and deceive opponents and influence their decisions and actions.
Use information suppression to block the enemy’s cognitive means.
Aim at the enemy’s important network targets, as well as core routers, switches, gateways, key servers, etc., and use “soft” and “hard” attack methods to destroy their network nodes. Based on the networking characteristics of wireless links such as the enemy’s command and control network, communication transmission network, weapon hinge network, and early warning detection network, comprehensively use technologies and means such as electronic jamming, GPS spoofing attacks, command link takeover, and data hijacking control to suppress them. Data communication, blocking its communication links and interfering with its combat command. Implement cyber-paralysis attacks on enemy command and control, military communications, early warning detection, aerospace information and other military networks, destroying core networks that affect their operations and weakening their combat capabilities.
Create a favorable public opinion environment through public opinion propaganda.
Cooperate with the country’s political, military, and diplomatic struggles, vigorously promote one’s own justice in the war, and stimulate the enthusiasm of all people to fully support the war. With the help of new media platforms such as instant messaging tools, online forums, podcasts, Twitter, and WeChat, we can systematically disseminate information that targets the enemy’s weaknesses. After gaining widespread attention and consensus, we can then promptly report information, create new hot spots, and repeatedly build momentum. Enhance the influence and form a resonance effect to expand the effect. Propaganda “sets the tone” by cleverly setting agendas, building public opinion through powerful media, setting off a “spiral of silence”, controlling and guiding public opinion, and changing people’s opinions and behaviors.
Use psychological attacks to undermine the morale of enemy soldiers and civilians.
Widely disseminate processed and processed information through the Internet, promote one’s own justice, demonstrate one’s strength, will and determination, vilify the enemy politically and morally, and internally Gather the thoughts and will of the military and civilians, strive for the legal and moral commanding heights externally, and spiritually “soften” and “weaken” the enemy. Use a variety of network communication methods and technical means to send various deceptive, disruptive, inductive, and deterrent messages to the enemy’s military and civilians in a targeted manner to attack the enemy’s psychological defense line, promote an ineffective confrontation mentality, and then lose the combat capability. . Through the Internet, we can create, guide, plan, build, and expand momentum to create a “momentum” that is beneficial to ourselves but not beneficial to the enemy, causing a psychological impact on the other party’s people, thereby affecting or changing their psychological state, and implementing effective psychological attacks.
Watch legal and moral support through legal struggle.
Use legal weapons to curb the enemy’s possible or future illegal acts, declare the legality of our actions, affirm our power of military counterattack, declare our determination to pursue war responsibilities, and give To intimidate the enemy. By exposing the illegality of the enemy’s provocative behavior, criticizing the legal basis for the enemy’s combat operations, and condemning the enemy’s illegal behavior, it causes the enemy’s strategic defeat and our own strategic gain. Use legal means to restrict the enemy’s possible actions, limit the possible interference of third parties, and block other parties from interfering with our own actions. Formulate the laws and regulations necessary for our operations to provide legal protection for our operations or take legal remedial measures to reduce the possible negative impacts of our operations and ensure that combat operations are carried out in accordance with the law.
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, intelligent algorithms are used to deeply mine these data, and the interests, hobbies, behavioral habits, and interpersonal relationships of the target object can be systematically analyzed, and then their value orientation can be determined. 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 the reshaping of target cognitive orientation 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.
Value offense and defense is an important way to carry out cognitive domain operations from a strategic level. Usually, value offense and defense involves interfering with people’s thinking, beliefs, values, etc., in order to achieve the purpose of disintegrating the enemy’s consensus, destroying the enemy’s will, and then gaining comprehensive control of the battlefield. . Accurately grasping the characteristics, mechanisms, and methods of value attack and defense is crucial to gaining operational advantages in the cognitive domain in the future.
Characteristics of the cognitive domain of value attack and defense
Value attack and defense refers to the intervention and influence on relatively stable cognitive results by inducing deep logical thinking and value judgment changes in individuals or groups, in order to reconstruct people’s will, thinking, psychology, emotion and other cognitive abilities. Value offense and defense mainly have the following characteristics:
Soft confrontation. Traditional war mainly relies on violent means to weaken and disintegrate the enemy’s military capabilities, and usually has a strong war intensity. Cognitive domain operations will no longer be limited to hard confrontations such as siege of cities and territories, but will focus more on penetration and counter-infiltration, attack and counter-attack, control and counter-control around value positions. By competing for dominance in cognitive domain confrontations, the physical domain will be further stimulated. and information domain combat effectiveness, thereby seizing the initiative on the battlefield and even achieving the effect of defeating others without fighting. In practice, value offense and defense often focus on the cultural traditions, values and social psychology of a country or nation, and ultimately achieve the purpose of destroying the enemy’s will, cognitive manipulation, and mental control.
Full dimensional release. Modern warfare increasingly exhibits overall, multi-domain, and all-time characteristics. Cognitive domain operations aim to affect battlefield effects by intervening in people’s consciousness. The relative stability of consciousness determines that people’s worldview, beliefs and other values are generally relatively stable. Therefore, value attack and defense require long-term, uninterrupted, holographic Proceed in all dimensions. From a time point of view, value offense and defense blurs the boundaries between peacetime and war, and is always in war, at any time, continuously accumulating and gradually releasing combat effectiveness; from a space point of view, value offense and defense blurs the boundaries between front and rear of operations, and creates a full range of physical and intangible space. Directional expansion; from a field perspective, value offense and defense blurs the boundaries between military and non-military. It not only occurs in the military field, but also exists in political, economic, diplomatic, cultural and other fields, showing the characteristics of full coverage.
Technology empowers. Cognitive domain operations are a technology-intensive and complex system engineering. The penetration of emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence, brain science, and quantum computing into the entire process is triggering iterative upgrades and profound changes in cognitive domain operations. Intelligent tools have fundamentally enhanced the ability of combatants in the cognitive domain to manipulate and intervene in the opponent’s thinking. As a new means and new style of combat power, human-machine hybridization will change the subject of future wars. Independent confrontation and cloud-brain victory may become the mainstream offensive and defensive model. . In recent years, NATO has launched cognitive electronic warfare equipment aimed at changing the opponent’s value perception and behavior through information offense and defense. The development of science and technology has also triggered a cognitive revolution. The rapid spread of information has further accelerated the differences in public value cognition. Cognitive islands have intensified the value gap between different subjects. The changes in social structure brought about by intelligence have profoundly changed the political and cultural landscape. . Starting from this point, in future cognitive domain operations, holding the “nose” of technological innovation and mastering key core technologies will be crucial to seizing the initiative on the battlefield.
The mechanism of cognitive domain of value attack and defense
Value offense and defense is a high-level confrontation in the cognitive domain, and its target is people’s deep cognition. Consciousness is the reflection of social existence in the brain. Regulation of social existence, guidance of public consciousness and changes in the function of the human brain can strengthen or reverse human consciousness. If you want to defeat your opponent in an offensive and defensive confrontation, you must follow the laws of thinking and cognition and grasp the winning mechanism of value offense and defense.
Shock value “protection zone”. Occupying the commanding heights of values is the logical starting point for carrying out value offense and defense. Social consciousness is often composed of relatively stable core values and peripheral auxiliary theories. Various theories such as economics, politics, religion, culture, etc. can be constructed and adapted to protect core values from external impacts, and therefore also bear the burden of external impact. The impact of other values challenges. From the perspective of foreign military forces, value offense and defense means to continuously impact the “protective zone” of the opponent’s ideology through cultural penetration, religious conflict, strategic communication and other means, in conjunction with actions in the physical and information domains. This often requires grasping the values, political attitudes, religious beliefs, etc. that affect the opponent’s cognition. By disrupting their social group psychology, inducing value confusion, shaking the will to fight, destroying cultural identity, and even changing and disintegrating their original cognitive system, Thereby instilling or implanting new values that are beneficial to oneself in order to achieve the purpose of combat.
Ignite the “tipping point” of conflict. Cognitive domain warfare involves history, culture, political systems, national emotions, religious beliefs and other categories, and the subjects of the war have also expanded from simple military personnel to ordinary people. Stimulating cognitive conflicts among ordinary people by hyping up topic disputes and public events will become an important means of cognitive domain warfare. In recent local conflicts, it is not uncommon for warring parties to use purposeful narratives to ignite national emotions, trigger political crises, and then affect the war situation. In future wars, some countries will use hot-button and sensitive events to ignite public opinion, and rely on network technology to gather, attract, mobilize, precisely manipulate and induce and shape ordinary people, thereby promoting general conflicts to escalate into battles over beliefs, systems, and values. Become the norm.
Controlling cognitive “fracture surfaces.” As an existence at the conceptual level, cognitive space is superimposed by the subjective cognitive space of all combat individuals. It is a collection of differentiated, different and even conflicting values. However, ideology has a “suturing” function. Through cognitive shaping and discourse construction, it can effectively “sew” broken cognitions together, condense scattered values, and form a relatively stable cognitive system. After World War II, France conducted an effective cognitive “suturing” of the trauma of defeat. It used a set of independent narrative logic to explain how the war provided “new opportunities” for France, which greatly condensed the French people’s political identification with the government. When fighting for value positions in cognitive domain operations, we should pay attention to the cognitive fractures within the enemy, find the cognitive connection points between the enemy and ourselves, and conduct cognitive “stitching” to unite the forces of all parties to the maximum extent and isolate and disintegrate the enemy.
The main means of the cognitive domain of value attack and defense
Value offense and defense expand cognitive confrontation from the public opinion and psychological levels to the thinking space, and from the military field to the overall domain, thereby achieving a blow to the enemy’s deep political identity. At present, the world’s military powers are strengthening their strategic preparations, aiming at profound changes in target subjects and tactics and means, transforming their operational thinking, and actively taking the initiative in cognitive domain operations.
Aiming for deep destruction. Cognitive domain operations directly affect human brain cognition. Compared with physical domain operations, it is easier to achieve deep strategic intentions. In particular, once the “high-order cognition” of people’s language level, thinking level and cultural level is broken through, it will help to strategically reverse the battlefield situation and achieve the political purpose of the war. Based on this, cognitive domain operations often start before the war, by intervening in the opponent’s internal affairs and diplomacy, shaking the ideological and value foundations of the opponent; during war, they focus on affecting the enemy’s war decision-making, campaign command, and battle implementation value judgments, attacking or weakening them. The decision-making ability and resistance will of combatants, etc. All hostile parties are trying to “maintain their own world while increasing the destructive pressure on their opponents” to achieve the goal of achieving decision-making advantages through competing for cognitive advantages, and then gaining operational advantages.
Centered on ordinary individuals. In the future, the subjects of cognitive domain operations will no longer be limited to military personnel. Broadly speaking, individuals who can exchange and disseminate information may become combatants. Compared with elites in the social field, ordinary people are more likely to accept and spread multiple values, and their cognitive space is more likely to be manipulated. At present, online media is becoming the main channel for information exchange and dissemination in the social field. Through targeted information guidance and information delivery, the purpose of cognitive shaping is achieved. Foreign military practice has proven that by shaping the cognition of ordinary individuals, it can cause progressive penetration and cognitive interference from bottom to top, causing the ideological concepts between ordinary people and social decision-makers to deviate, making it impossible to achieve key actions. effective consensus.
In the form of protracted warfare. Unlike military struggles in the physical domain that directly attack and destroy “hard” targets, the potential target of cognitive domain operations is human cognition. Value attack and defense are directed at changing the concepts, beliefs, will, emotions, etc. of the combatants, which often requires subtlety and step-by-step operations. Effective cognitive attacks are generally launched during the preparation stage of combat and run throughout the war. By collecting the opponent’s cognitive situation, decision-making habits, thinking patterns, etc., actions such as creating a situation and changing the atmosphere are carried out in a targeted manner. Therefore, cognitive domain operations need to strengthen the overall design, pay special attention to coordinating multi-party forces, and strengthen pre-preparation in multiple positions such as public opinion field creation and diplomacy, so as to form an overall operational synergy.
(Author’s unit: Military Political Work Research Institute, Academy of Military Sciences)
