Never before has scientific and technological power had such a profound impact on the future of the military and the outcome of wars, and never before has it been such a powerful support for a strong military to win wars.
The so-called technological cognition is the ability to recognize and grasp the performance, value and development trend of technology with the goal of promoting scientific and technological innovation and application, which is prominently reflected in the sensitivity, understanding, discrimination and control of technology. In today’s era, science and technology are becoming the core combat power of modern warfare, and the technological content has become a key indicator for measuring the quality of military construction. Faced with unprecedented opportunities and challenges, if technological cognition cannot adapt to the new requirements of the development of the times, it will be difficult to inject momentum into the generation and improvement of combat power, and it will be difficult to win the important weight to win the future.
Improving technical cognition is not only a “question to be answered” for professional and technical personnel, but also a “must-choose question” for every officer and soldier. From the perspective of the realization process of technical value and effectiveness, if the invention and creation of technology is “primary value”, then the effective use of technology is “secondary value”. Accelerating the pace of scientific and technological innovation depends on the broadening of the knowledge horizons of professional and technical personnel, keeping a close eye on the forefront of science and technology, and constantly making new breakthroughs in the research and development of forward-looking, strategic, and disruptive technologies. With more new inventions and creations in the field of military science and technology, we can increase our contribution to the construction of the army and the growth of combat effectiveness, and actively seize the commanding heights of military technology competition. The transformation and application of scientific and technological achievements depends on the officers and soldiers, especially the leading cadres at all levels, to speed up the updating of knowledge and improve their scientific and technological literacy, so as to enhance and tap the application value of technology with scientific cognition and thorough understanding of science and technology, ensure that scientific and technological achievements are transformed into real combat effectiveness, and improve the ability to prepare for war at a higher starting point and level. Obviously, from scientific and technological innovation to scientific and technological application, it is a “value-added” process that is closely connected, mutually promoted, and focused. It is a process of seeking to win through science and technology and releasing the combat effectiveness of technology to a greater extent. Technical cognition is the internal support that runs through it and demonstrates people’s active role and creative talent. We must take improving the scientific and technological literacy of officers and soldiers as a basic task. We must have political and military minds as well as scientific and technological minds. Scientific and technological literacy and scientific and technological thinking are based on and built on technological cognition. The higher the technological cognition, the stronger the innovation and creativity in the use of science and technology, and the greater the effect of promoting the growth of combat effectiveness.
Improving technical cognition is not only the key to mastering modern weapons and equipment, but also the move to accelerate the innovation of military theory and combat theory. With the rapid development of military technology, especially emerging technologies such as information, intelligence, stealth, and unmanned, the high-tech content of weapons and equipment is getting higher and higher, the replacement cycle is getting shorter and shorter, and the correlation and coupling between various types of weapons and equipment are getting stronger and stronger, and the system application characteristics are becoming more and more prominent. From a realistic perspective, insufficient technical cognition is a prominent shortcoming that restricts the mastery and use of weapons and equipment, and there is even a phenomenon that troops cannot “play” without the accompanying support of manufacturer technical personnel in exercises. Facing the new development trend of weapons and equipment, from mastering skills to exploring potential, from enhancing the effectiveness of systematic application to improving the ability of actual combat application, it is inseparable from improving technical cognition, thereby realizing the organic combination of people and weapons and equipment and obtaining a new “growth pole” in combat capability. It should also be noted that modern technology is penetrating into the military field with unprecedented strength, depth and breadth. The new military technology form accelerates the reconstruction of military theory and military system form, bringing about the deep interaction and deep integration of military technology and military theory, making technical cognition the “catalyst” of new combat theory. Practice has shown that without a thorough understanding of aviation technology, there will be no air combat theories such as air superiority; without a thorough understanding of information technology, there will be no information combat theories such as information superiority; without a thorough understanding of space technology, there will be no space combat theories such as “high frontier”. Similarly, if there is a lack of thorough understanding of the new features of artificial intelligence such as data-driven, human-machine collaboration, cross-border integration, and autonomous control, it will be impossible to create new theories and tactics such as intelligent combat and unmanned combat. Only with a technological cognitive advantage can we truly transform the military technology advantage into a theoretical leadership advantage and even a battlefield victory advantage.
Improving technology awareness is not only a way to distinguish the authenticity of technology and guard against technology fraud, but also a need to keenly perceive the development trend of military science and technology. It is worth being highly vigilant that Western media often promote and hype some so-called new technologies and new concepts, playing specious tricks. If you lack the ability to discern, cannot distinguish the true from the false, and believe everything you hear, you will inevitably fall into the technology trap set by others and become passive. Back then, the Soviet Union was led by the nose by the “Star Wars Plan” of the United States, and was confused by the Americans’ hype and deliberate fraud, which ultimately affected the entire military combat capability construction and the lesson was extremely painful. In the face of new opportunities and challenges brought about by the new round of scientific and technological revolution, we must maintain a high degree of technical acumen and insight, recognize the dominant direction and characteristics of the times in the development of military science and technology, and accurately grasp the trend of weapons and equipment developing in the direction of long-range precision, intelligence, stealth, and unmanned. The continuous emergence of disruptive technologies is profoundly changing the mode of generating combat power. Trend: new breakthroughs in high-tech will accelerate the development of new combat forces. Those military technologies that “change the rules of the game” will accelerate the evolution of war forms and combat methods. The integration of military technology and civilian technology is becoming deeper and deeper. We will strive to plan according to the situation, act according to the situation, and follow the trend, and make greater efforts to promote the development of the military through science and technology. Only by deepening the research on war and combat issues from the perspective of technological change, recognizing and grasping the characteristics, laws and winning mechanisms of informationized warfare from the influence of scientific and technological factors, and seeking breakthroughs in the innovation of combat theories and tactics by tapping into the effectiveness of technology, can we promote the precise and effective implementation of the strategy of developing the military through science and technology, lay a solid foundation and increase confidence for our military to remain invincible in future wars.
From the battlefield of “bows, horses, and swords” in the cold weapon era to the three-dimensional battlefield of land, sea, and air in the industrial era, and then to the integrated battlefield covering multiple domains such as physics, information, and cognition in the information and intelligent era, one of the core logics of the evolution of war forms is to continuously enter new domains and integrate multiple domains. Cross-domain aggregation of combat effectiveness has become a war-winning mechanism with certain basic and decisive characteristics. In this process, the cognitive domain has increasingly become a new battlefield that infiltrates and affects multi-domain operations, as well as a new commanding height that determines the success or failure of the war.
The cognitive domain has become the key to seizing comprehensive control
In modern warfare, the cognitive domain has become the key to seizing comprehensive control. War practice shows that the cognitive domain has increasingly become the focus of planning modern warfare and achieving multi-domain integrated linkage victory.
The cognitive domain advantage supports the doubling of multi-domain combat effectiveness. In modern warfare, destroying the enemy and preserving oneself in the physical domain, fighting for the right to control land, sea, air, and space; blocking the enemy and connecting oneself in the information domain, fighting for the right to control the network and information, are all deeply related to the advantages and active position of the cognitive domain. In the game of system-to-system confrontation, once the opponent is suppressed and the initiative is taken in the cognitive domain, decision-making interference can be formed on the key nodes of the enemy’s command chain, kill chain, and support chain, so that the actions in the physical domain and information domain can obtain asymmetric benefits of “four ounces to move a thousand pounds”, thereby improving the input-output ratio of operations, enhancing the speed and efficiency of local victory leading to global victory, and reducing the subsequent constraints of military strikes in the economic and social life fields.
The planning and implementation of multi-domain combat operations should pay attention to the role of the cognitive domain. Modern warfare is significantly complex, and the elements of multi-domain operations are interconnected, the impact is transmitted in multiple directions, and the risks are superimposed on each other. Every action or even a detail of a multi-domain combat operation will trigger a chain reaction in the cognitive domain at the decision-making issues, military morale, public opinion, social confidence, and international public opinion levels of both sides, thereby quickly, suddenly, and unexpectedly affecting the overall situation of the war, and even causing a “butterfly storm” that changes the internal and foreign affairs of the warring parties and even the long-term development trend of the country. In planning and implementing physical domain and information domain operations, we must not only focus on shaping the situation and creating conditions in the cognitive domain, but also accurately control the direction and size of the release of effectiveness in the cognitive domain in accordance with the need to seize control of the brain, heart, and intelligence. The dynamic changes in the number of enemy annihilation, the temporary gains and losses of a city or a place, etc., are increasingly losing their significance as indicators for evaluating the direction of the war. The overall impact of military operations on the war situation increasingly needs to be evaluated and considered from the perspectives of the changes in international and domestic public cognition and the psychological impact on specific objects.
The material and technical conditions for the cognitive domain to trigger multi-domain integration are becoming increasingly mature. The leapfrog development of information-based intelligent cognitive perception technology has made the cognitive domain game confrontation rapidly develop from absolute “uncalculated” and “uncontrollable” to a considerable degree of “calculated” and “controllable”. The decision-making support of technologies such as big data and intelligent algorithms supports the deep integration of different combat forces in the cognitive domain and the command and coordination of multi-dimensional forces, strengthens the consistency and coordination of forces, means and actions in politics, economy, diplomacy, culture and military, and brings the operability of designing multiple domains, commanding multiple domains and controlling multiple domains with a focus on the cognitive domain. The widespread use of weapons and equipment such as drones and precision-guided bombs also provides realistic and feasible tactical options for precise strikes through combat operations. The rapid popularization of intelligent communication technologies such as precise profiling, intelligent distribution, social media live broadcast, robot writing, and virtual reality, and the cross-integration and development of neuroscience, cognitive science and intelligent technology have made it convenient and efficient to plan and implement “X+ cognitive attack and defense” and realize integrated joint operations.
Cognitive domain penetration affects the winning path of multi-domain aggregation
Cognitive domain penetration affects the integrated linkage of multiple domains. It is not a simple “1+1”, but the energy of multi-domain actions is instantly optimized in the cognitive domain, so as to continuously inject the emergence effect that is beneficial to oneself into the overall situation of the war. To this end, it is necessary to strengthen the innovative design of combat planning and implementation paths to ensure that multi-domain convergence and victory are achieved under the influence of cognitive domain penetration.
Deepen the understanding of multi-domain tasks with cognitive domain combat needs. Focusing on the overall national strategy, clarify the cognitive domain combat needs, and calculate and determine the combat tasks of each domain based on this. Establish the must-hit targets and avoidance targets of firepower strikes, the first targets and the last targets, the open targets and the hidden targets, the heavy targets and the light targets, etc., and focus on the effectiveness of destroying the morale of the combat opponent. Establish the goals, timing, and intensity of channel control, and focus on the deprivation of the combat opponent’s social mobilization capabilities, international communication capabilities, etc., and the support effectiveness for our information release and external propaganda. Establish the focus of intelligence information collection, and focus on the ability to grasp the combat opponent’s cognitive domain combat power, describe the characteristics of cognitive attack and defense targets in fine granularity, and dynamically grasp the international and domestic public opinion and social trends.
Guide multi-domain action design with cognitive domain combat tasks. Focusing on the questions of “who, what kind of cognitive impact, and to what extent”, the cognitive domain combat tasks in different combat phases and different combat scenarios are subdivided, and based on this, the overall planning and detailed design of what actions to organize in each domain, what opportunities to seize, what forces to invest, what tactics to adopt, and how various actions are connected and crossed are carried out. The reason why the “Four-sided Chu Song” was able to disintegrate the powerful Chu army was first because the Han army completed the military encirclement of the Chu army, and secondly, it used the clever idea of the captives singing Chu songs at night. In fact, different action timings, different task forces, different weapons and equipment, different tactics selections, and even different action names convey very different information, and the intensity of cognitive impact generated is also significantly different. It requires careful consideration and scientific research and judgment to strive to maximize efficiency and optimize the effect. When loading cognitive attack and defense actions for fire strikes, network attack and defense, electronic countermeasures, defensive operations, special operations and other actions, different imagination and creative thinking levels, different technical understanding, application and innovation, and the final effect achieved is even more different.
Organize multi-domain collaborative support with cognitive domain combat actions. Cognitive domain combat operations involve multiple participants and various action styles. Normal operations require coordinated support from forces and firepower, such as precision strikes, seizing key areas, and demonstrating momentum. In special cases, coordinated support from strategic forces, such as the display of cutting-edge weapons and equipment and the organization of major exercises and drills, is also required. Throughout the entire operation, specific personnel and specific combat units, such as commanders speaking publicly and media embedded reports, are also required to coordinate support. Intelligence data, channel bandwidth, forensic information, and technical equipment are also indispensable. To this end, it is necessary to mobilize multi-domain forces and resources throughout the entire process, in real time, systematically, and accurately, so that military warfare, psychological warfare, and intellectual warfare can leverage each other’s strengths and support each other, forming a chess game and playing a combination of punches.
Focus on deepening the understanding of the concept of cognitive domain penetration and influence on multiple domains
Establishing the status of cognitive domain penetration and influence on multi-domain operations and promoting integrated linkage victory is a deep-level conceptual revolution, which requires strengthening various supporting constructions to create conditions and lay the foundation.
Strengthen institutional guarantees. The cognitive domain penetration and multi-domain integrated joint operations have put forward higher requirements for cross-departmental and cross-institutional collaboration and cooperation, and it is necessary to form a scientific and efficient command chain that supports the cognitive domain penetration and multi-domain and multi-domain integrated linkage. It is necessary to clarify the cognitive domain combat responsibilities of each element of the joint combat command organization, optimize and reorganize the command process, and ensure that the penetration and influence of the cognitive domain are reflected in combat determination, task planning, and action design. Focusing on cross-domain integrated linkage, we will establish and improve work systems and cooperation mechanisms at all levels such as strategy, campaign, and tactics, strengthen the mutual leverage and coordination of cognitive domain operations and physical domain and information domain operations, and give full consideration to the effective coordination of military forces and local relevant functional departments and professional forces, so that the comprehensive advantages can be transformed into the ability advantages of cognitive domain penetration and multi-domain empowerment.
Improve the ability and quality of commanders. Foreign militaries believe that qualified commanders in modern warfare need to be good at “rapidly transforming active kinetic operations into more subtle cultural warfare” and should have “unique intuition” and “comprehensive leadership capabilities” for this. In order to achieve cognitive domain penetration and multi-domain integrated linkage in war practice, it is necessary to first strengthen the awareness of cognitive domain operations in the minds of commanders at all levels, strengthen the consciousness and initiative of forming cognitive domain penetration to influence multi-domain task planning and action design, and strengthen the ability to implement high-efficiency cognitive offense and defense with force and firepower operations and information control and seizure as means and carriers. It is necessary to take multi-domain coordinated command under the influence of cognitive domain penetration as an important content of strategic and campaign exercises and training, highlight the training of commanders to command and control multiple domains with a focus on cognitive shaping, and promote the training field to keep close to the actual requirements of winning political and military battles.
Promote the updating and improvement of joint cultural concepts. Cognitive domain penetration and multi-domain integrated linkage operations are the sublimation and optimization of joint combat concepts and mechanisms, and especially require the support and guarantee of joint cultural construction that is adapted to them. On the one hand, we must strive to break the influence of traditional war thinking patterns, break some traditional concept barriers, and focus on cognitive guidance, multi-domain integration, and linkage operations as the forefront of joint cultural construction to update concepts. On the other hand, we must strengthen the construction of a theoretical system for cognitive domain penetration and multi-domain integrated joint operations, conduct in-depth research on the winning mechanism of cognitive domain operations and innovation of tactics, and lay a solid ideological foundation with theoretical accumulation.
(Author’s unit: Political College of National Defense University)
Modern warfare, according to the characteristics of material form, usually divides the combat domain into the physical domain, the information domain, and the cognitive domain. The three domains interact with each other to form the field and soil for military confrontation. Although cognitive domain operations occur in the cognitive domain, their operational support often spans various fields. War practice shows that with the enhanced effectiveness of hard strikes in the physical domain, cognitive formation can often be accelerated, and cognitive realization can better meet combat needs.
Cognitive offense and defense cannot be separated from physical support
Today’s world is a world where everything is interconnected. The collection of different objects connected to each other greatly enhances the function of independent individuals acting alone. Cognitive domain operations are never isolated operations between cognitive carriers. Only by integrating cognitive attack and defense into an integrated joint operations chain, closely integrating with physical domain military strike operations, and tightly integrating with the entire combat system can we fully exert combat effectiveness.
The starting point of cognition. Existence determines consciousness. Thinking and cognition is not a fairy from the sky, but a true or tortuous reflection of the real world. Without the foundation of the material world, thinking and cognition will lose the source of information, the basis for analysis and judgment, and the accuracy of decision-making and action, making it difficult for people to trust, recognize, and rely on. Even the most psychedelic science fiction wars still have references to real combat targets, specific combat objectives, and corresponding combat paths. Therefore, intelligence reconnaissance analysis has become an indispensable and important link for commanders to organize troops and plan. “Without investigation, there is no right to speak” is regarded as a golden rule that must be followed in decision-making. Battlefield simulation simulations have become an important step for the success of combat operations. In history, most of the combat commands of accomplished generals and classic combat cases that can withstand the test of history and practice are all based on full investigation and research and scientific intelligence analysis. Without the hard-core support of the real world, “human beings think about , and God laughs.”
The basis of cognitive effects. A golden rule of operations in the cognitive domain is that soft power at the cognitive level must be supported by hard strikes at the physical level in order to ensure and strengthen its role. Strong military pressure is a necessary prerequisite for cognitive means to work, and continuous victory on the battlefield is the core support for winning cognitive wars. If the United States does not have the high-pressure pressure of its super comprehensive national strength and superior technology, its “Star Wars Plan” may not really work. If cognitive domain operations lack the support of specific military operations in the physical domain, they will never produce the good effects of doubting, confusing, deterring, and defeating the enemy. To grasp the initiative in thinking and cognition and to take the initiative in cognitive domain operations, we must not only strengthen the construction of cognitive ontology, improve the ability to directly use strategies and technical means to strengthen self-protection, intervene and influence the opponent’s thinking and cognition, but also actively strive to The physical domain leverages the conduction effect of military operations in the physical domain to enhance thinking and cognition.
The starting point for cognitive realization. Marxism believes that once theory grasps the masses, it will also become material force. From the perspective of combat in the cognitive domain, the spiritual creation at the superstructure level of cognition will not automatically turn into material power. Only by being attached to a certain material carrier and practical grasp can it be possible to realize spiritual to material and consciousness. A critical leap into existence. Just as in World War II, if the German army had not bypassed the Maginot Line, broke through the Ardennes Forest, and launched a surprise attack into the French hinterland, it would have been impossible to demonstrate the foresight of the cognitive achievement of the “Manstein Plan”; similarly, if there were no Allies, The military’s successful landing in Normandy, which invaded the east and west, also failed to highlight the ingenuity of the strategy of “Building plank roads openly and concealing warehouses” in the “Operation Overlord Plan”. Thinking and cognition are transmitted through people to specific military operations in the physical domain, and then the specific military operations in the physical domain realize the materialization of cognitive results, forming the fundamentals of the two-way interaction between cognitive offense and defense and military strikes in the physical domain.
The basic method of physical attack to support cognitive offense and defense
The methods and methods used by military strikes in the physical domain to support cognitive offense and defense follow the general law that matter determines consciousness and existence determines thinking. The basic methods can be divided into enhanced support, confirmation support and realization support.
Enhanced support. Military strikes in the physical domain strengthen the formation and development of thinking and cognition. Although thinking and cognition depend on the quality of the cognitive carrier itself, it will be difficult to achieve without the support of military operations in the physical domain. The most basic role of military operations in the physical domain in the cognitive domain is to provide solid support for the formation and development of thinking and cognition. Thinking and cognition can only be stable and far-reaching if it is based on real physical actions. For example, in the early days of the Korean War, when the Korean People’s Army was overwhelming, our army’s combat staff Lei Yingfu and others accurately predicted the landing of the US military based on the war situation, geographical and weather characteristics of the Korean Peninsula, especially the various actions of the US and South Korean troops at that time, etc. time and location. Similarly, Li Qiwei of the “United Nations Army” also made a judgment on the “worship offensive” based on the logistics support, weapons and equipment, and tactical use of the volunteers, and used “magnetic tactics” to fight me. These are all enhancements to the formation and development of thinking and cognition caused by combat in the physical domain.
Confirmation type support. Military strikes in the physical domain confirm preset thinking, precognition, and prejudgment. Cognitive attack and defense does not only occur at the cognitive level, but is the interaction between cognition and practice. War is a “place of life and death, a way of survival”. If one’s cognitive decision-making cannot be verified in many directions at the practical level, then acting rashly is the greatest irresponsibility for war. During the revolutionary war years, our military’s decision-makers were always under the control of the overall strategy and gave front-line commanders the power to act as appropriate and in accordance with the overall strategic direction principle. This is a positive confirmation of strategic thinking. During the Second World War, the Allies used “false facts” to mislead, constantly shaping and strengthening the German army’s misunderstanding of the Allied landing sites on the European continent, and finally successfully landed in Normandy with minimal cost. This was a counter-attack. To confirm.
Implementation support. Provide direct physical support for the realization of thinking, cognition, judgment and decision-making. Thinking and cognition must be transformed into actual results that change the world. The thinking and cognition acting on the opponent is not the end but a new starting point. Next, it must be acted upon in the physical world through “skilled hands” and “brave heart”. In other words In short, it is to provide direct physical action support for the value realization of thinking and cognition. This is just like Zhuge Liang’s clever plan, no matter how brilliant it is, if there is no implementation by the “Five Tiger Generals” and other Shu Han soldiers, it can only remain at the cognitive level of talking on paper. No matter how efficiently the first three parts of the “OODA” loop operate, if the execution link “A” is missing, it will be a “dead loop”. Similarly, the results of our army’s command decisions also depend on the resolute, thorough and creative execution of the officers and soldiers. The quality and efficiency of the execution directly determines the effectiveness of the implementation of the command decisions. In this regard, physical actions at the execution level are of extremely important practical significance.
Effectively strengthen the interaction between cognitive offense and defense and physical strikes
Thinking and cognition must rely on the support of physical actions, which is an objective law that is independent of human will. It is an extremely important task to strengthen the communication and interaction between thinking and cognition and physical strikes to make our thinking and decision-making more targeted, objective and operable, so as to better transform cognitive advantages into action advantages and winning advantages. .
Be more proactive and solidify your cognitive foundation. Whether the thinking and cognition is correct depends fundamentally on its compatibility with objective reality and its applicability to combat opponents. Only thinking and cognition based on full investigation and research, seeking truth from facts and comparative advantages can stand the test of practice and actual combat. The practice of absolute, sacred, and nihilistic thinking or generals’ genius, wisdom, and inspiration is idealistic, one-sided, and harmful. This requires that we must work hard to base our thinking and cognition on the basis of extensive investigation, research and intelligence analysis, and truly understand the enemy’s situation, our situation, and other people’s situations, truly know our enemies and ourselves, know everything we should know, and adapt to local conditions. The camera moves. At the same time, we must combine reading books without words with books with words, unify indirect theory with living practice that is constantly developing and changing, and dialectically recognize past experiences and lessons and other people’s experiences and lessons, so that they become our own knowledge. Help instead of shackles, assist instead of dominate.
Be more proactive and strengthen cognitive rationality. Correct understanding that can withstand the long-term test of practice and actual combat comes from practice and is strengthened through feedback from practice. Cognitive practical experience is only the basic material for obtaining correct cognition. To form scientific cognition, we need to further eliminate the false and preserve the true in the repeated collision and verification of consciousness and matter, thinking and existence, in order to improve cognitive rationality. It is wrong and even fatal to think that true knowledge can be obtained once and for all from only local situations, fragmented information and individual periods of time. In the Battle of Chibi in ancient China, Cao Cao’s side only came to the understanding of concatenating warships from the common sense that iron cables can balance the shaking of the ship’s hull, and did not confirm it from the actual combat effects or consequences of concatenating warships. If you don’t know how to recreate, you will easily tie up the ship with iron ropes and tie yourself up, and ultimately end up in the disastrous defeat of “burning Red Cliff”. Times have changed, and the enemy situation on the modern battlefield is ever-changing. There has never been an unchanging cognitive practice, nor a once-and-for-all cognitive achievement. It can only strip away impurities and extract the essence from material to cognitive to material confirmation for re-cognition. , can we return to rationality.
Be more proactive in objectifying cognitive outcomes. Cognitive achievements are only the result of thinking and consciousness nurtured in cognitive carriers. Without timely and effective material transformation, it will be like walking at night wearing brocade clothes or hiding treasures in the mountains, and it will be difficult to demonstrate its own value. Thinking and cognition are based on physical actions, and ultimately rely on specific actions in the physical domain before they can be materialized and transformed into actual results that change the subjective and objective worlds. This requires us to not only consolidate the cognitive foundation and strengthen cognitive rationality, but also improve the operability of cognitive decision-making and planning as much as possible, opening the door for smoother materialization and transformation. At the same time, efforts must be made to improve the execution capabilities of decision-making and deployment executors, so that they can correctly understand the intention of decision-making, creatively adopt appropriate methods based on specific realities, and maximize the implementation of cognitive results and operational decision-making plans to the end. Be a good “ferryman” and “bridge across the river” that connects and transforms cognitive results with combat effectiveness.
Source: Liberation Army News Author: Yang Longxi Editor-in-charge: Wang Feng 2022-10-08 10:11:25
In recent years, local wars and armed conflicts are mostly “mixed” confrontations that unfold in multiple dimensions and fields, emphasizing the use of military, political, and economic means, implementing system clamps in the comprehensive decision-making dimension, creating various chaos in the international communication dimension, and carrying out targeted strikes in the strategic focus dimension, actively shaping the battlefield situation, and seeking to seize strategic initiative. In future wars, we must fight political-military battles and military-political battles, and we should deeply grasp the characteristics and laws of cognitive domain operations, offense and defense, and improve our ability to fight the “five battles”.
Cognitive warfare is the first step to shape the situation and take the initiative. Before the war begins, cognition comes first. With the continuous development and evolution of the war situation, the status and role of cognitive warfare are becoming more and more prominent. Aiming to win the future war, cognitive deployment should be carried out in advance, and through strategies, information, technology and other means and carriers, the target’s physiological, psychological, values and other cognitive elements should be influenced, intervened and manipulated, and military operations should be covered by cognitive offense and defense, so as to accurately and efficiently dominate the cognitive space. We must fully realize the importance of taking the initiative, flexibly and independently master the right to define and interpret “narrative”, emphasize taking the initiative in the dimension of cognitive narrative struggle, create a favorable situation with legal principles in hand and morality on our side, and occupy the moral high ground.
Cognitive warfare is about attacking the heart, and we should fight a precise war in layers. “A good warrior will attack others but not others.” In future wars, the combat space will extend to the deep sea, deep space, deep network and other fields, and the battlefield space and time will be extremely far, extremely small, extremely intelligent, and unmanned, invisible, and silent. We should focus on cognitive gaps to improve our reach, use big data simulation, artificial intelligence matching, psychological model evaluation and other methods to analyze and control the key information of cognitive subjects, and achieve effective penetration and early deterrence of cognitive subject information. We should focus on cognitive blind spots to enhance penetration, aim at the ideological consensus points, psychological connection points, and spiritual support points that maintain the unity of the powerful enemy alliance to effectively strike, and use their cognitive differences and conflicts of interest to achieve differentiation and disintegration at all levels.
Based on cognitive combat strategy, we should fight a war of deterrence and control with full domain penetration. In future wars, the strategic competition and strategic confrontation between the warring parties will be extremely fierce. We should focus on the decision-making links and make comprehensive efforts to increase the opponent’s decision-making dilemma and form our own decision-making advantages. On the one hand, we should pay more attention to key nodes such as the enemy’s decision-making center, command hub, reconnaissance and early warning system, and use advanced strike means to physically destroy these nodes. On the other hand, we should pay more attention to the “soft kill” effect of cognitive shaping, cognitive inducement, cognitive intervention and cognitive control, and embed cognitive domain operations into “hard destruction”, so as to form a strong shock through precise strikes with high-tech weapons, and expand new-quality combat forces to the cognitive dimension, thereby forming an asymmetric balance of power.
Information is king in cognitive warfare, and we must expand the field to fight a good support war. Future wars cannot be separated from strong information support, and we should accelerate system integration to gain data advantages. First, we should accelerate the construction of cognitive offensive and defensive combat theory bases, databases, talent pools, case bases, and tactics bases, dynamically collect and update the current status of the enemy’s cognitive offensive and defensive combat capabilities, and provide all-round support for cognitive offensive and defensive operations. Secondly, we should accelerate the creation of a converged media communication matrix, improve and perfect our own platform system, and step up the deployment of network platforms, focusing on system integration and collaborative linkage, breaking through the “barriers” of information interconnection as soon as possible, and realizing cognitive integration and sharing, and comprehensive effectiveness. Thirdly, we should accelerate the coupling and linkage of information and cognitive domain operations, vigorously develop core technologies such as neural network systems, artificial intelligence applications, cognitive decision-making psychological offense and defense, explore and analyze cross-domain and heterogeneous cognitive information, and improve the information fusion system of cognitive means to provide “clairvoyance” and “clairaudience” for winning future wars.
The key to cognitive warfare is coordination, and we should make efforts in multiple dimensions to fight the overall battle. Future wars will be joint operations carried out in the fields of land, sea, air, space, network, electromagnetic, etc. We should adhere to system thinking, strengthen coordination awareness, and improve the compatibility and coordination of cognitive domain operations with other military actions. For example, we can integrate human intelligence, geographic intelligence, and open source intelligence, quickly collect and process massive data, remove the false and retain the true, and accurately and efficiently seize cognitive space, so as to achieve complementary advantages and full coverage to form cognitive advantages. By networking the dispersed multi-domain forces, we can establish a highly connected, collectively acting, and overall attacking full-domain joint force to achieve the effect of “integrated deterrence”. By integrating national resources, strengthening strategic communication, and using cognitive manipulation to amplify the effects of political disintegration, economic sanctions, and diplomatic offensives, and coordinating military operations to exert pressure on the target in all dimensions, we strive to defeat the enemy without fighting.
(Author’s unit: University of Aerospace Engineering)
War is a confrontation of material forces, but it is also a test of ideological cognition. To implement President Xi’s new requirements for comprehensively improving strategic capabilities in emerging fields, we must grasp the “bull’s nose” of scientific and technological cognition, focus on the new situation of accelerating the new round of scientific and technological revolution, industrial revolution and military revolution, focus on strengthening the army and winning wars, and strengthen the research and exploration of strategic, cutting-edge and disruptive technologies in emerging fields. With a deep understanding of the nature and laws of science and technology, we can master the realization of high-quality development of military construction, win the initiative in military competition and future wars, transform scientific and technological cognition into a real ability to design and win wars, and accelerate and win new advantages in strategic areas that must be fought.
(one)
Only by understanding the times can we understand war. In the era when scientific and technological revolutions and military revolutions are integrated and intertwined, and science and technology have become the core combat power of modern warfare, improving the scientific and technological cognition of strategic capabilities in emerging fields will help us understand and grasp the characteristics and laws of modern warfare, better control information-based and intelligent warfare, achieve overtaking in new fields and new tracks, win military competitive advantages with scientific and technological advantages, and win future high-tech wars.
Leading military reforms to seize the commanding heights. The wise hear what is silent, and the wise see what is not yet formed. Only by keenly perceiving the development trends of emerging technologies and expanding the cognitive boundaries of strategic frontier technologies can we see what is not yet born, recognize what is not yet developed, take the initiative, and lead the elements of the military field to achieve revolutionary transformation and development. In today’s era, emerging technologies represented by artificial intelligence are emerging in a “well-like” manner, leading and promoting the rapid development of military intelligence at an unprecedented speed, triggering chain breakthroughs in the military field, and leveraging fundamental changes in the war pattern. Scientific and technological innovation has always been a race of time and speed. Faced with the strong momentum of military science and technology development in emerging fields, we must strive to seize the initiative and gain advantages. We must accurately grasp the general trend of science and technology of the times, dare to stand at the forefront of human warfare and scientific and technological development, grasp the basic laws of scientific and technological development and evolution in the long river of history and the global perspective, and accurately identify new goals, new fields, and new heights for the development of military science and technology. We must find breakthroughs in the development of military science and technology in a timely manner, bravely advance into the “no man’s land” of military science and technology innovation, seize the strategic commanding heights of military technology competition, and lead the military revolution to achieve new breakthroughs and leaps with new thinking concepts.
Lead the military competition and win the initiative. The level of cognition ultimately determines the pattern of military competition. At present, the frontier positions and strength competition of world military competition have extended to emerging fields, and the acquisition of technological advantages has become a strategic measure to seek military advantages. In the fierce competition of technological subversion and counter-subversion, assault and counter-assault, offset and counter-offset, scientific and technological cognition has become a key variable that determines the victory or defeat of military games. If there is a generation gap in scientific and technological cognition, there is a risk of being surpassed by the opponent’s new technological combat power. If there is a technological gap in shaping new-quality combat power, it will be difficult to “change the rules of competition” and form a military competitive advantage. Recent local wars and armed conflicts in the world have shown that whoever has a leading strategic capability and technological cognition in emerging fields and uses technology to empower combat power can control the battlefield situation and thereby achieve a fundamental change in the winner and loser. In the increasingly fierce world military game, in order to seize the initiative in the development of military science and technology in emerging fields and occupy a favorable position of high-level control, it is necessary to enhance the scientific and technological awareness of strategic capabilities in emerging fields, keep a close eye on changes in science and technology, changes in war, and changes in opponents, plan according to the situation, act according to the situation, follow the trend, make advance arrangements, and plan ahead to ensure the formation of unique advantages in some important fields and win the initiative in military games.
Leading a strong army to win the war and win the future war. Practice determines cognition, which is the source and motivation, purpose and destination of cognition. The scientific and technological cognition of strategic capabilities in emerging fields is aimed at promoting scientific and technological innovation and application. The fundamental focus is to create a new quality combat power growth pole. The main purpose is to seize the commanding heights of strategic competition, seize the initiative in war, and ultimately win the future war. At present, the development of emerging fields is showing an all-round and multi-domain in-depth advancement trend, and the frequency of dynamic iteration and update of science and technology is accelerating. In order to forge a new quality combat capability with a new killing mechanism and improve the scientific and technological content of national defense and military modernization, we must deeply grasp the key areas of scientific and technological innovation and development in emerging fields, grasp the new characteristics of cross-integration development of scientific and technological innovation and development in emerging fields, focus on creating a new quality combat capability growth pole, vigorously promote independent innovation and original innovation, eliminate backward technologies that are not adapted to the changes in the war situation, adhere to the integrated development of mechanization, informatization and intelligence, improve the innovation and application of military science and technology, comprehensively enhance the strategic capabilities of emerging fields, and win the battle to achieve the goal of building the army for a hundred years as scheduled.
Two
Improving the scientific and technological cognition of strategic capabilities in emerging fields is a very complex process of subjective and objective rational thinking. To accurately grasp the essential attributes and characteristic laws of scientific and technological innovation and development in emerging fields, and to know both the facts and the reasons, we should focus on improving the three abilities of scientific and technological foresight, discrimination, and understanding in the strategic capabilities of emerging fields, and form a scientific cognitive ability system that supports, cooperates with, and influences each other, providing strong support for comprehensively improving the strategic capabilities of emerging fields.
Aiming at future wars, we should enhance our scientific and technological foresight. Emerging fields are one of the main battlefields of future wars. Once some technologies achieve breakthroughs, the impact will be subversive, and may even fundamentally change the form and mode of war, and fundamentally change the traditional offensive and defensive pattern of war. Science and technology have never had such a profound impact on military construction and the outcome of wars as they do today. If we have a narrow scientific and technological cognition and lack strategic foresight and prediction of cutting-edge technologies in emerging fields, we may not understand our opponents, understand wars, and even more so win future wars. During the Gulf War, Iraq’s mechanized steel torrent lost to the US military’s precision-guided weapons. One of the important reasons for this was the gap between the two countries in strategic capabilities and scientific and technological cognition in emerging fields. In order to let our thoughts reach tomorrow’s battlefield, we must improve our scientific and technological awareness, closely follow the development direction of the world’s advanced military science and technology, promptly grasp the latest developments in cutting-edge science and technology, scientifically predict the development trend of science and technology, make full use of technologies such as data mining, comprehensively judge the revolutionary impact of high-tech development on war, take the lead in laying out emerging combat fields, develop a series of high-tech weapons and equipment, accelerate the scientific and technological empowerment of combat effectiveness, and provide a solid material foundation for winning future wars.
Keep a close eye on how to defeat powerful enemies and improve scientific and technological identification. War is a life-and-death confrontation between the enemy and us, and emerging fields are the top priority for the struggle between the two sides. Improving the scientific and technological awareness of strategic capabilities in emerging fields is the fundamental strategy to prevent technological raids and avoid technological traps. In order to seize the initiative in war, powerful enemies have always not only used their unique high-tech weapons and equipment to raid their opponents, putting them in a disadvantageous situation of passive attack, but also a more dangerous trick is to carefully set up technical traps and implement strategic deception. During the Cold War, the Soviet Union fell into the strategic deception trap of the US “Star Wars Plan”, which accelerated the decline of national strength. To persist in winning against powerful enemies, we must improve the scientific and technological discernment of strategic capabilities in emerging fields, closely follow the technological frontiers of powerful enemies, formulate breakthrough strategies for building strategic capabilities in emerging fields, and maintain a high degree of technical sensitivity and discernment of some so-called new technologies and new concepts promoted by powerful enemies. We must be good at distinguishing the authenticity of technology, weighing the pros and cons of development and the extent of its impact, and persist in developing strategic resources in emerging fields based on national conditions and military conditions, so that the innovative achievements of military science and technology in emerging fields can better empower the decision-making chain, command chain and combat power generation chain.
Mastering the winning strategy improves the understanding of science and technology. The key to building a strong army and winning wars is to master the winning strategy. In the context of the deep coupling of modern science and technology with the military, understanding and mastering science and technology has become a necessary ability to understand, design and win wars. From the perspective of human military history, it is precisely because of the thorough understanding of the principles of aviation technology and space technology that Douhet’s “air supremacy” theory, Graham’s “high frontier” theory and other war theories have been produced. Similarly, if there is a lack of thorough understanding of new technologies such as human-machine collaboration, group intelligence, and autonomous control of artificial intelligence, it will be impossible to master the winning mechanism of intelligent warfare and explore new theories and tactics of intelligent warfare. Technology determines tactics. To win future wars, we must focus on thinking about wars from a scientific and technological perspective, understand the impact of emerging technological developments on wars, learn from the latest achievements in military science and technology innovation of the world’s superpowers, study and explore the internal mechanisms of high-tech in emerging fields supporting modern warfare, explore how to use scientific and technological concepts and thinking to accurately grasp the laws of winning wars, how to use advanced scientific and technological means to strengthen the construction of new-quality combat capabilities, how to design wars based on scientific and technological principles, and how to transform scientific and technological advantages into capability advantages, and use the “key” of scientific and technological thinking to open the “door” to victory.
(three)
Comprehensively improving the scientific and technological cognition of strategic capabilities in emerging fields is a long-term, systematic strategic project. We must deeply understand and implement the important instructions of Chairman Xi, take improving the scientific and technological literacy of officers and soldiers as a basic task, and improve the scientific and technological cognition of officers and soldiers with a high sense of mission, scientific thinking concepts, and effective methods and approaches, so as to lay a solid foundation for comprehensively improving strategic capabilities in emerging fields and realizing high-quality development of our army.
Accelerate the transformation of ideas and concepts. The wise change with the times, and the knowledgeable act according to circumstances. While the emerging military technology is transforming the objective world, it is also profoundly changing people’s subjective world, forming a subversive impact on the traditional war-winning mechanism and way of thinking. The internal requirement is to transform ideas and concepts and enhance scientific and technological cognition. Engels pointed out: “When the wave of technological revolution is surging around… we need newer and braver minds.” Whoever is conservative, conservative, and self-contained will miss precious opportunities, fall into strategic passivity, and even miss an entire era. We must emancipate our minds and update our concepts, actively adapt to the development trend of world military changes today, be sensitive to the innovation of military thinking brought about by the technological revolution, have the courage to change the mindset of mechanized warfare, break the shackles of conservative thinking, firmly establish a new mindset of information-based and intelligent warfare, establish a new concept of strengthening the military and winning victory through science and technology, focus on understanding the new face of war, discovering new characteristics of war, and revealing new laws of war from a scientific and technological perspective, and strive to raise the level of war cognition to a new height.
Cultivate the foundation of scientific and technological literacy. Scientific and technological literacy is the ability to scientifically understand and describe the objective world and the ability to think scientifically. The depth of the foundation of scientific and technological literacy fundamentally determines the level of scientific and technological cognition. If you don’t understand science and technology or your scientific and technological literacy is not high, you will be like looking at flowers in the fog or the moon in the water when it comes to modern warfare, let alone being able to fight and win. To improve the scientific and technological cognition of strategic capabilities in emerging fields and understand the winning mechanism of modern high-tech warfare, the key is to work hard to improve the scientific and technological literacy of officers and soldiers, coordinate the use of advantageous military and civilian scientific and technological resources, vigorously spread the scientific spirit, popularize scientific knowledge, strengthen the study of modern science and technology, especially military science and technology knowledge, and conduct in-depth research on cutting-edge technologies such as artificial intelligence, big data, blockchain, and quantum technology. We must have a deep understanding of the new features of artificial intelligence such as deep learning, cross-border integration, human-machine collaboration, group intelligence, and autonomous control. We must understand and master the latest scientific and technological achievements, build a multi-dimensional knowledge system with information and intelligent technology as the main body, improve the level of thinking, expand the knowledge structure, and vigorously promote the transformation of the “variable” of scientific and technological cognition of strategic capabilities in emerging fields into the “energy” of building a strong army and winning wars.
Improve capabilities through practice. A knife needs to be sharpened and a person needs to be trained. To enhance the scientific and technological cognition of strategic capabilities in emerging fields, it is necessary not only to nourish the theory to promote the transformation of ideas and concepts, but also to follow the basic law of human cognitive movement of “practice, cognition, re-practice, and re-cognition”, make good use of the actual combat “grindstone” to sharpen the wisdom, and promote the scientific and technological cognition of strategic capabilities in emerging fields to a higher level. We must have the courage to improve quality and capabilities in the practice of strengthening the military with science and technology and strengthening training with science and technology, adhere to learning while doing and learning while doing, focus on our main responsibilities and main business, delve into cutting-edge science and technology based on our posts and combat positions, and improve our scientific and technological acumen, insight, and response speed; enhance our technical understanding of new equipment, new skills, and new tactics, cultivate scientific thinking, master scientific methods, improve our scientific and technological cognition, and cultivate the ideological awareness of strengthening the construction of strategic capabilities in emerging fields from a scientific and technological perspective; keep a close eye on powerful enemies and future battlefields to cultivate a stronger “technological mind”, be familiar with our opponents’ scientific and technological achievements, capabilities, and means, accurately grasp the “hard core” and “soft ribs” of our opponents’ scientific and technological development, adhere to the asymmetric thinking to tailor-make struggle strategies and tactics, and provide strong guarantees for winning this future high-end war and hybrid war.
(Author’s unit: Military Science Academy, Institute of Political Work)
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.
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.
The evolution of war patterns always goes hand in hand with the industrial revolution. In recent years, the wave of intelligence has surged and has been widely and deeply applied in the military field, ushering in intelligent warfare for human society. Intelligent warfare is rooted in the intelligent society, with “human-machine intelligence fusion” as its main feature. The empowerment of intelligence makes the role of cognition in combat more prominent, and cognitive-led victory will become an important mechanism for winning wars.
The history of the development of war naturally pushes cognition to the dominant position
War in the information age occurs simultaneously between the physical domain, the information domain, and the cognitive domain. It should be pointed out that the physical domain, information domain and cognitive domain are not the exclusive domain of war in the information age. All wars and even all history are derived from the joint action of the three. They have come and gone in the long history of war, and have alternately become the dominant force in winning battles. elements.
(1) Energy dominates playing speed and strength. When the form of war changes, the mobility, lethality and protective power in the physical domain increase, often becoming the key to victory in combat. This is true for iron weapons and war horses in cold weapon warfare, muskets and artillery in hot weapon warfare, and ships, tanks, and aircraft in mechanized warfare. To sum up, it is energy dominance. Energy dominates the game with speed and strength. Whoever has a better, faster, and stronger main battle platform is often more likely to win. However, the effectiveness of weapons cannot be infinitely developed. Nowadays, platform mobility has been limited by human physiological limits and has encountered a bottleneck. Nuclear weapons also tell us that regardless of whether there is an upper limit to the development of firepower, its use will be strictly limited.
(2) Information takes the lead to achieve accuracy and integrity. The information domain focuses on the transmission and sharing of information. The development of information warfare has caused the confrontation between the two combatants to “gradually change from a problem of intensity, material and energy to a problem of structure, organization, information and control.” Information replaces energy and becomes the key to victory in combat. Information dominance means focusing on precision and overall control. Whoever’s weapon platform has higher strike accuracy and whose combat system has stronger information sharing capabilities will be more likely to win. However, the relationship between information advantage and decision-making advantage is not linear. As the amount of information continues to increase, the formation of decision-making advantage must also resort to intellectual support in the cognitive domain.
(3) Cognition-led development of intelligence and design. The cognitive domain includes perception, judgment and decision-making, etc., and has been a must for military strategists since ancient times. Ancient military classics such as “Sun Tzu’s Art of War” contain rich ideas of wisdom and victory such as “predicting victory first” and “attacking with troops through strategy”. In the history of war, there are countless examples of winning by relying on strategy. Cognition leads the development of intelligence and design. Especially when the form of war matures, confrontation between evenly matched opponents will always be dominated by cognition. If we look at the development level of energy and information in the past, there are still great constraints on commanders’ planning and design of operations. So today’s great development of the two provides conditions for them to effectively achieve their intentions. Being able to do it as soon as you think of it is naturally shifting the dominant factor in winning battles to cognition. The side with higher intelligence and stronger design capabilities can often dominate the development of the battle situation.
Intelligence will give cognitive dominance a special era connotation
Intelligence is not about letting machine intelligence surpass, replace or eliminate humans, but rather using it to assist, liberate and enhance humans, and achieve human self-transcendence through the integration of human-machine intelligence. It enables humans, who have been using cognition to transform the world and change wars for thousands of years, for the first time to have the ability to transform cognition itself. This transformation is no longer the accumulation of knowledge, but a leap in ability; it is no longer the patent of a few elites. Rather, it is a characteristic of society as a whole. When it widely penetrates into the combat field, the form of war will enter the intelligent war, and cognitive dominance will take on a new connotation.
(1) Expansion of cognitive space. In today’s era, human factors and weapon factors are becoming more and more closely integrated. The most typical examples are drones and intelligence. “Intelligence” mainly refers to autonomous systems, that is, simulating and materializing human intelligence and transplanting it into machines. Machine intelligence empowerment will allow autonomous systems to easily break through human physiological limits, enter environments that humans cannot bear at a speed beyond human reach, and rely on a certain amount of “on-site intelligence” to complete tasks that humans are unable or unwilling to complete. It may not really improve people’s cognition, but it will definitely extend people’s cognition in space and expand the combat space to extreme areas such as deep space, deep sea, and deep earth.
(2) Improvement of cognitive efficiency. There are countless examples of cognitive victory, but there are only two reasons for this. Either rely on perceptual cognition, that is, intelligence. In the age of information scarcity, the level of decision-making is positively correlated with the amount of information. From small to large amounts of information, the quality of decision-making improves almost linearly. It is said that “if you know your enemy and yourself, victory is not in danger; if you know the sky and the earth, victory is endless.” Either rely on rational cognition, that is, judgment and strategy. Clausewitz said: “Three-quarters of the situations on which actions are based in war seem to be hidden in the clouds and are more or less unreal.” Excellent commanders can always reveal ” The information behind “The Mist” is what is said to be “what everyone knows, it has already been written; what I see, it has not yet been formed.” But when information moves from scarcity to overload or even “explosion”, the function curve between decision quality and information quantity begins to decline, making it increasingly difficult to use complex information to form accurate judgments. At this time, intelligence seems to be coming as planned. Computational intelligence may not surpass humans in terms of logical capabilities, but its powerful processing speed can solve the decision-making dilemma caused by information overload.
(3) Cognitive interconnection and sharing. Combat is a violent confrontation between armed groups. Regardless of decision-making or actions, timely and effective communication between combatants is required. The advantage of information dominance is information sharing. However, due to the subjectivity of cognition, people often have different understandings of information, or even completely different opinions. The same information does not mean that the same information works in the same direction. With the development of machine intelligence, brain-computer interface and other technologies, their “silicon brains” will rely on the linkability that is significantly better than that of the human brain to promote the evolution of the network form from the Internet of Things to the Internet of Brains, and combat interaction will subsequently be based on information sharing. Moving towards situation sharing and decision-making sharing, the combat system will truly be realized and exerted.
Cognitive dominance will be widely used in intelligent warfare
Winning by instant advantage means “having the comprehensive capabilities and favorable situation to defeat the opponent at the moment when force is launched against the enemy, at the decisive point of the war.” It is the fundamental winning mechanism of war. The dominant factor in seizing and maintaining immediate advantages varies with changes in war forms. In intelligent warfare, cognition dominates.
(1) Relying on the advantage of cognitive control of time to predict and strike preemptively to a new level. Time is the only irreducible factor in combat, and preemption is the eternal winning mechanism. Intelligent warfare will increasingly seize control of time advantage. First, you must first sense the enemy. In 2017, the US military proposed the concept of “algorithmic warfare”, which is to use intelligent analysis technology to quickly extract high-value intelligence from massive amounts of data. The popularization of intelligence in the future will push forward the intelligent perception of intelligence to ensure that enemies are discovered from the source. Secondly, we must make decisions before the enemy. The hybrid intelligence of human-machine integration and the network intelligence of up-down linkage will help realize distributed synchronized combat planning, and all levels within the organization can realize the integrated generation of combat plans. The third is to act before the enemy. The troops can prepare for combat in advance according to the specific process of joint decision-making. Once the combat plan is generated, they can immediately switch to combat.
(2) Relying on cognition to create military superiority, unmanned swarms and group operations will become typical new tactics. Victory with more and less is the embodiment of “victory with instant advantage” in the use of combat forces. In intelligent warfare, victory with more and less is mainly the use of cognitive materialization, that is, machine intelligence, to shape military superiority and implement unmanned swarm or group operations. . First of all, the development of intelligent and additive manufacturing technologies has enabled autonomous systems to achieve cost savings and gain an absolute advantage over the enemy in terms of the number of platforms with the same investment. Secondly, when autonomous systems enter the battlefield, no matter how brave or tenacious they are, even the best soldiers cannot match them. Unmanned or manned-unmanned coordinated swarm operations will be both violent, saturated, and economical. In addition, the unmanned group combat formed by the combination of machine intelligence and bionics will demonstrate powerful systematic combat capabilities through self-learning, self-collaboration, self-healing and even self-evolution capabilities.
(3) Relying on cognition to expand spatial advantages, cross-domain efficiency enhancement and global integration will reach a new level. Intelligence will not only create a new combat space, but also expand the breadth and depth of joint operations. Autonomous systems with certain cognitive capabilities can secretly maneuver to deep space and deep sea space near key targets or important passages to conduct infiltration and latent operations, forming a new cross-domain check and balance advantage against the enemy. “The defenders’ towers are silent and their traces are gone. They are more mysterious than ghosts and gods. They are underground and cannot be seen. The attackers are fast and fierce, as fast as thunder and lightning. They are in the sky and cannot be caught and prepared.” It can form a new asymmetry to the enemy. Advantage. Use intelligent sensing to form a more accurate understanding of the combat environment, use intelligent decision-making to implement a more reasonable allocation of combat resources, use intelligent networks to provide more flexible access to combat platforms, and achieve flexible deployment of combat forces, full-domain linkage, and efficient energy release.
(4) Aiming at the enemy’s cognition, attacking the mind and controlling the brain, control replaces destruction as a new way to win. Compared with the traditional “conquering the enemy without fighting”, intelligent warfare has greatly expanded its ability to attack the mind and control the brain. The former puts more emphasis on “win on the road” and focuses on deterring opponents; the latter focuses more on influencing and controlling opponents. In December 2017, Russia’s base in Syria was attacked by a “swarm” of 13 small drones. Russia controlled 6 of them using electronic warfare means, which was the prototype of mind control. One is to fabricate information to influence. In the future, real-life audio and video synthesis, pervasive network attacks, and immersive virtual reality will provide more effective means to influence the opponent’s cognition. The second is to tamper with the program to influence. Such as using “core attack warfare” to tamper with the algorithm of the enemy’s command and decision-making system. The third is to directly control the enemy’s decision-making. Use cyber warfare, electromagnetic warfare and other methods to control the enemy’s “brain” attacks to achieve the goal of stopping and winning the war at the minimum cost.
Military theorists often say that victory tends to smile on those who can foresee changes in the character of warfare, rather than on those who wait for changes to occur and then adapt. In recent years, disruptive technologies represented by artificial intelligence have developed rapidly and are widely used in the military field, accelerating the evolution of war into intelligence. Correspondingly, the concept of war is also changing. Only by discovering changes in time, proactively responding to changes, and actively adapting to changes can we remain invincible in future wars.
From “using the strong to defeat the weak” to “using wisdom to control the weak”
“The strong wins and the weak loses” is a certain universal law for winning wars. Even in those battles in which the weak defeat the strong, it is often necessary to form a strength advantage over the enemy locally and at a specific period of time in order to truly win. In the era of intelligent warfare, the contribution rate of intelligence superiority to combat effectiveness is much higher than other factors.
In intelligent warfare, human intelligence has widely penetrated into the combat field and been transplanted into weapon systems. All-domain, multi-dimensional, and various types of intelligent combat platforms can quickly couple combat forces, build combat systems based on mission requirements, and independently implement collaborative operations and missions. After the end, it quickly returns to the state of waiting for war, showing the trend of intelligent autonomy. The side with higher and stronger intelligence can better develop and use the “wisdom to control” mechanism, and even design wars based on this, dominate the development of the war situation, and achieve final victory. It should also be noted that in the era of intelligent warfare, there are likely to be multiple stages of development from low to high. Try to keep yourself in an advanced stage and attack the opponent to a low-dimensional stage. This is also the mechanism of “outsmarting” by using high to defeat low. Use.
From “destroying power” to “destroying cognition”
As the form of war accelerates and evolves towards intelligence, the combat space gradually expands from the physical domain and information domain to the cognitive domain, extending from the tangible battlefield to the invisible battlefield. The cognitive space composed of human spirit and psychological activities has become a new combat space. Different from the main purpose of traditional war, which is to eliminate the enemy’s physical strength, intelligent warfare will pay more attention to weakening the enemy’s morale, disintegrating the enemy’s will, and destroying the enemy’s cognition.
By intelligently analyzing the opponent’s personality preferences, psychological characteristics, and decision-making habits, deterrence information can be “tailored” in a targeted manner, and the advantages of cutting-edge technologies such as intelligence can be used to demonstrate powerful strength to the opponent in a realistic way, making anxiety and suspicion Emotions such as fear and fear continued to ferment within it, eventually leading to its self-defeat. Big data, known as the “new oil”, not only enriches the source of intelligence, but also becomes an important “weapon” that affects the opponent’s cognition. By processing big data and deliberately “leaking” it to the opponent, a new “fog of war” will be created for it, making it fall into a state of cognitive confusion. In intelligent warfare, the struggle for the heart and mind will become more intense, and the party with the cognitive advantage will be better than the other party, making it easier to seize the initiative and take advantage of opportunities.
From “people-oriented” to “human-machine collaboration”
In traditional warfare, the organization and use of military force are dominated by people. With the widespread application of smart technology, the proportion of unmanned equipment continues to increase. In intelligent warfare, combat tasks will be completed by man-machine collaboration, and the two will achieve organic integration and complementary advantages. The third “offset strategy” proposed by foreign military forces focuses on human-machine collaboration as a key technology for development. Concepts such as “loyal wingman” proposed by them are also aimed at exploring the realization of manned/unmanned collaborative operations. It is foreseeable that human-machine collaboration will play an important role in future wars.
Utilizing unmanned reconnaissance forces to carry out three-dimensional and multi-dimensional battlefield situation awareness can provide real-time intelligence support for manned combat forces; using unmanned platforms to carry relay loads can continuously provide communication relay support for manned combat forces; using unmanned combat forces to penetrate into the front battlefield, It can attract enemy attacks, force the enemy to expose its position, and provide target guidance and fire support for manned combat forces; using unmanned transportation equipment to provide material supplies to the front line can improve logistics support efficiency, reduce transportation costs, and reduce unnecessary casualties. With the assistance of artificial intelligence, manned combat forces and unmanned combat forces will achieve scientific division of labor and reasonable coordination in terms of quantity, scale, functions, etc., thereby maximizing overall effectiveness.
From “eating the small with the big” to “eating the slow with the fast”
In traditional wars, it is often necessary to increase the number of troops to make up for shortcomings in equipment performance and other aspects. “Soldiers love the main speed”, the rapid development of military intelligence has greatly improved the speed of information transmission and weapon strike accuracy, greatly reduced the time for reconnaissance and early warning, intelligence processing, command decision-making, fire strikes, damage assessment, and accelerated the OODA kill chain cycle , making “discovery and destruction” possible.
New rapid-kill weapons such as hypersonic missiles, laser weapons, microwave weapons, and electromagnetic pulse weapons have further pushed the pace of war to “instant kill.” In the Gulf War, the loop time of the OODA loop took 3 days; in the Iraq War, the loop time has been shortened to less than 10 minutes; and in the Syrian War, the loop time has almost achieved near real-time. In intelligent warfare, the use of unmanned platforms that integrate surveillance and combat to quickly and precisely eliminate high-value targets such as the enemy’s core command posts and high-level commanders will cause the opponent to suffer heavy damage before it has time to respond, and may even face the danger of paralysis. It can be seen that victory does not necessarily favor the side with large military strength. The side that moves quickly and accurately will be more likely to gain the upper hand on the battlefield. According to statistics, the reaction time required for artificial intelligence to respond to battlefield changes is more than 400 times faster than that of humans. Faced with the ever-changing battlefield situation, people will be more inclined to use artificial intelligence technology to realize adaptive planning and autonomous decision-making of the command and control system, so that the command and control mode changes from “people on the loop” to “people outside the loop”, thereby mitigating the While reducing the burden on command personnel, it can improve combat efficiency and the success rate of mission execution.
From “Integration to Win” to “Cluster to Win”
The traditional equipment development concept is to invest a large amount of money in the research and development of highly integrated, sophisticated weapon platforms, in order to achieve dimensionality reduction against the enemy by virtue of generational advantages and performance advantages in war. However, the development and deployment of multi-functional high-end platforms not only requires a lot of time and money, but when multiple software and hardware modules are integrated into a single weapon platform, there may also be mutual incompatibility. Once the platform is destroyed, significant losses will occur. The military application of disruptive technologies such as artificial intelligence has promoted the rapid development of unmanned swarms. Unmanned swarms have the advantages of large scale, low overall cost, and decentralization. The unmanned platforms coordinate with each other and cooperate with each other. They can make decisions independently and carry out combat tasks in an organized manner. Even if some unmanned platforms are destroyed, the overall operation will not be affected. efficacy. The operational concepts such as “decision-centered warfare” and “mosaic warfare” proposed by foreign military forces focus on using unmanned swarms to complete combat missions. In intelligent warfare, by dispersing reconnaissance and surveillance, information communication, command and control, fire strike and other functions into a large number of unmanned combat units with a single function, a highly robust and elastic “kill network” is constructed, and then based on mission needs Adjusting the combination method will allow powerful group intelligence to emerge, creating great uncertainty for the opponent, thereby trapping the opponent in the judgment link of the OODA loop, unable to make effective decisions. In addition, due to the large number of unmanned swarms, the opponent’s detection, tracking, and interception capabilities can quickly reach saturation. Because the opponent cannot destroy all unmanned platforms in the swarm, the opponent has to face the dilemma of defense failure.
From “military dominance” to “diversified mixture”
Traditional war mainly relies on violent means to make the enemy succumb to one’s own will. It usually has a strong war intensity and has a clear boundary between peacetime and wartime. As the field of military struggle continues to expand into new fields such as space, network, and intelligence, and the role of economic, cultural, diplomatic, legal and other means in war continues to become more prominent, intelligent warfare will be carried out in many fields represented by “grey zones” In the form of “multi-pronged approach”. The intensity of war may weaken, and the boundaries between peace and war will become more blurred. Whether it is the Saudi oil fields that were attacked by drones in 2019, which caused half of its oil production to cease, or the largest oil pipeline in the United States that suffered a cyber attack in 2021, which caused a large-scale oil shortage, the far-reaching impact of various new attack methods cannot be ignored. underestimate.
As intelligent technology develops and matures, it will become more common to use a variety of means to launch attacks on opponents’ industrial, transportation, financial, communications, energy, medical and other facilities and networks. The threshold for intelligent warfare will show a downward trend, and warring parties may resort to undeclared warfare to launch hybrid wars that integrate economic warfare, diplomatic warfare, cyber warfare, public opinion warfare, psychological warfare, legal warfare and other types of warfare, leaving opponents exhausted. cope.
From “actual combat test” to “experimental exercise”
Under traditional conditions, due to the lack of scientific simulation and evaluation tools, the true capabilities of the military can only be tested in actual combat. Under intelligent conditions, virtual reality technology can be used to create virtual scenes with a strong three-dimensional sense and realism based on the actual battlefield environment and mission background. This scene can not only restore objective things such as weapons and equipment from multiple dimensions such as sound, appearance, and performance, but also simulate various severe weather such as heavy fog, heavy rain, and blizzards, and visually display the terrain, meteorology, hydrology, etc. of the battlefield. Electromagnetic, nuclear and other information is close to the real situation on the battlefield.
Setting the imaginary enemy in the virtual environment based on the characteristics of the enemy in reality and conducting intelligent simulation of the possible direction of the war situation can enable officers and soldiers to “experience” the war several times in virtual reality before the official war begins, thereby making a better understanding of equipment performance, With a clear understanding of the rhythm of the war and the situation between ourselves and the enemy, you will be more able to perform realistic tasks with ease. Before the outbreak of the Iraq War, the US military secretly developed a computer game that simulated the combat environment in Baghdad. Among the personnel sent to perform tasks in Iraq, the survival rate of those who received game training was as high as 90%. As the data collected in reality continue to be enriched and improved, the construction of the virtual battlefield will become more realistic, the prediction of the direction of the battlefield situation will be more accurate, and the comprehensive assessment of the exercise will be more credible. Both hostile parties will strive to use intelligent deduction. If the outcome of the war is known in advance, it will be possible to “subdue the enemy’s troops” without fighting or with a small battle.
