Cognitive Warfare

• The art of using technology to alter the cognition of human targets.

• They are usually unaware.

• Those countering the results may be unaware.

• Combat without fighting.

• There are many misconceptions on this topic. 

Online Training

In-Person Training

Our training starts here!

• What is Cognitive Warfare?

  The Treadstone 71 series of Cognitive Warfare courses study practices, methods, tools, technologies of information operations, examples of hybridization, including approaches of countering this type of warfare. The militarization of the information space changes the need for forceful geopolitical takeovers. We continue to experience a genuine technological revolution in waging information warfare. We study complex and elaborate schemes using a methodology of system analysis that identifies and convert an informal description of a process or a procedure into an algorithm starting with machine learning with the goal of mature artificial intelligence.

The Cognitive Warfare Training Course

• Color Revolutions - What are they?

  Color Revolutions

  We associate color revolutions with pro-western governments coming to power in former Soviet republics. Their characteristics include a semi-autocratic regime with an unpopular leader opposed by a united and well-organized group. Media and narrative control used to convince the public that voting was falsified combined with protests of election fraud and extremist groups infiltrating police and military organizations driving internal divisions to the point of fighting one another (sound familiar aka the January 6 Insurrection and all that preceded this event). We examine the following ‘revolutions’ considered in this genre:

  • Velvet Revolution, Czech Republic, 1989
  • Rose Revolution, Georgia, 2003
  • Orange Revolution, Ukraine, 2004
  • Tulip Revolution, Kyrgyzstan, 2005
  • White Revolution (the name we give the insurrection), United States 2021
    • January 6 Insurrection and continued attempts at a revolution, United States 2021

  Russia sees the culmination of the January 6 attempted coup as retribution for the United States’ support of color revolutions in other countries. Russian leadership sees Color Revolutions as the illegitimate toppling of governments in other countries, and for treating them as an absolutely normal process if they correspond to US interests.

  Russia believes the activities of radical public associations and groups using nationalist and religious extremist ideology, foreign and international non-governmental organizations, and financial and economic structures, and also individuals, focused on destroying the unity and territorial integrity of the Russian Federation, destabilizing the domestic political and social situation—including through inciting "color revolutions"—and destroying traditional Russian religious and moral values.

  Michael McFaul identified these seven stages of successful political revolutions common in color revolutions:

  1. A semi-autocratic rather than fully autocratic regime
  2. An unpopular incumbent
  3. A united and organized opposition
  4. An ability to quickly drive home the point of falsified voting results
  5. Enough independent media to inform citizens about the falsified vote
  6. A political opposition capable of mobilizing tens of thousands or more demonstrators to protest electoral fraud
  7. Divisions among the regime's coercive forces.

  Other actions related to Color Revolutions and also part of Hybrid Warfare include:

  1. Develop a strategy for winning freedom and a vision of the society you want
  2. Overcome fear by small acts of resistance
  3. Use colors and symbols to demonstrate a unity of resistance
  4. Learn from historical examples of the successes of non-violent movements
  5. Use non-violent “weapons”
  6. Identify the dictatorship’s pillars of support and develop a strategy for undermining each
  7. Use oppressive or brutal acts by the regime as a recruiting tool for your movement
  8. Isolate or remove from the movement people who use or advocate violence.

• What are Cyber Grey Zone activities?

  Cyber Grey Zone

  Grey-zone activities are coercive cyber (or physical) statecraft actions short of war. The Grey Zone uses doubt creating an atmosphere where adversaries cannot make timely and confident strategic decisions. The grey zone is a mainly non-military domain of activity in which states use online methods to deliberately coerce the adversary. From fake news and online troll farms to terrorist financing and paramilitary provocations, these approaches often lie in the contested arena somewhere between routine statecraft and open warfare—the “grey zone.” - https://www.csis.org/programs/gray-zone-project “The grey zone phenomenon is also referred to as hybrid threats, sharp power, political warfare, malign influence, irregular warfare, and modern deterrence. Although it reflects an age-old approach, it is newly broad in its application. Today, the toolkit for coercion below the level of direct warfare includes information operations, political coercion, economic coercion, cyber operations, proxy support, and provocation by state-controlled Forces. China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea, as well as non-state actors, are increasingly turning to these strategies to overcome U.S. strengths in global diplomacy, law, and commerce.” The Center for Strategic and International Studies

  The grey zone describes a set of activities that occur between peace (or cooperation) and war (or armed conflict). A multitude of activities fall into this murky in-between—from nefarious economic activities, influence operations, and cyberattacks to mercenary operations, assassinations, and disinformation campaigns. Generally, grey-zone activities are considered gradualist campaigns by state and non-state actors that combine non-military and quasi-military tools and fall below the threshold of armed conflict. They aim to thwart, destabilize, weaken, or attack an adversary, and they are often tailored toward the vulnerabilities of the target state. While grey-zone activities are nothing new, the onset of new technologies has provided states with more tools to operate and avoid clear categorization, attribution, and detection—all of which complicates the United States’ and its allies’ ability to respond. - Clementine G. Starling is the deputy director of the Forward Defense practice and a resident fellow in the Transatlantic Security Initiative.

• Psychological Technique of the Seven Radicals

  The essence of the technique is that by external signs (visual psychodiagnostics - the cognition of people by their appearance and behavior) it is possible to determine the components of the nature of the radicals. Thus, in real time, without the use of tests, one can see the psychological and communicative features of a partner in his behavior, in the manner of building communication, and even in the appearance of the interlocutor. 7 radicals, character types:

  • Paranoid (purposeful);
  • Hysteroid (demonstrative);
  • Epileptoid (there are 2 types: stuck and excitable);
  • Schizoid (strange);
  • Hyperthymic (cheerful);
  • Emotive (sensitive);
  • Anxious (fearful).

  The radicals got their names from the terms used in psychiatry that characterize a particular mental disorder of the personality. However, radicals, or, as they are also called, accentuations, are only personality traits in which certain character traits are excessively enhanced.

• Conspiracy Theories

  In a reversal of conventional scientific reasoning, the evidence against conspiracy theories is often construed as evidence for them, because the evidence is interpreted as arising from the conspiracy in question.

  Conspiracy Theories are commonplace today. Or more importantly, they were always there but now they have become mainstream. People – including conspiracy theorists themselves – just write off these beliefs as “crazy.” However, they can potentially cause lasting damage. The psychology behind conspiracy theories and why people cling to them is so important but often overlooked. We should know how to tackle this, but we do not yet. Many argue that we were so complacent when it comes to conspiracy theories that it allowed Donald Trump to win support and end up becoming President.

  We underestimated the influence then, and probably still is now. Vulnerable people are more likely to believe these theories, so we must ensure we do not downplay influence and we highlight the risks associated with them. Although the internet has allowed for theories to spread more quickly and more widely, it also allows us to be more critical of what we read and believe.

  Conspiracy theories have been around for centuries. In the last few decades, their influence has remained much the same, despite them seeming more widespread. It seems in the past perhaps we have been too dismissive of conspiracy theories. However, now that there is so many surrounding Coronavirus, we seem to understand the potential risks they can pose. In the grand scheme of things, most people know how to spot (and therefore dismiss) conspiracy theories.

  The online course covers definitions, use of terms, and the intent of the terms used. We review a bit of critical thinking then relate terms to current events.

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• Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP)

  Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) - Neurolinguistics. Neurolinguistics is a behavioral communication model and a set of procedures that improve communication skills. The HUMINT collector should read and react to nonverbal communications. He must be aware of the specific neurolinguistic clues of the cultural framework in which he is operating. NLP may be used to program the mind for better habits and help shift perceptions, and heal wounds or traumas. But in cognitive warfare operations, NLP is used to change behaviors, influence, and manipulating your targets to the perceptions you wish.

• Influence Operations

  Influence Operations is a coordinated effort to influence targets using a range of illegitimate and deceptive means. Influence means to alter the opinions, attitudes, and ultimately behavior of your target through inform and influence. activities, presence, and conduct.

• Information Warfare

  Information Warfare is information warfare as a conflict involving the protection, manipulation, degradation and denial of information. Any action to deny, exploit, corrupt, or destroy the enemy`s information and its functions, protecting ourselves against those actions, and exploiting our own military information functions-information as a weapon and target.

• Russian Information Warfare

  Information operations is a key component of Russia’s contemporary way of war Russian Information Operations includes:

  • All the uses of information and disinformation,
  • State or nonstate actors
  • As a tool of state power including
    • military information support operations, cyberspace operations, electronic warfare, military deception, psychological operations, public affairs, and strategic communications.

• Chinese Information Warfare

  The Chinese Model Includes

  • Divide – Find societal fractures & disagreements and make them worse.
  • Undermine – Destroy trust in institutions and leaders
  • Subvert – Twist and misrepresent your adversary’s words and actions
  • Threaten or Terrorize – Intimidate population with show of physical force or harsh words
  • Saturate – Out-publish your adversary with multi-channel content

  

• Iranian Information Warfare

  One of the Iranian Models covers:

  • Pattern of life for fake pro-Iranian voices
  • Pattern of life for trolls to attack anti-Iranian opposition
  • Pattern of life for threatening emails
  • Anti-Iranian websites with MEL-based DDoS simulation
  • Persona library of fake journalists, activists, academics and media personalities

• Leaks Operations

  Leaks Operations convey information to the target audience information that the adversary might wish to keep out of public view, and when disclosure occurs in the context of disclosing secret information, it gains notoriety and attracts attention disproportionately to its actual importance.

• Hybrid Warfare

  Hybrid warfare entails a fusion of conventional as well as unconventional instruments of power and tools of subversion. We blend tools in a synchronized manner to exploit the vulnerabilities of an adversary achieving harmonious effects. We also cover Third Wave Warfare from Alvin and Heidi Toffler.

• Disinformation, Misinformation, Malinformation, & Manipulation

  Disinformation: Carefully contrived misinformation prepared to mislead, delude, disrupt, or undermine confidence in individuals, organizations, institutions, or governments. “False information about someone or something, disseminated as a hostile act of tactical subversion.”

  Misinformation is “false information that is spread, regardless of intent to mislead.”

  Malinformation is information based on reality, but used to inflict harm on a person, organization or country.

  Manipulation: A series of related techniques of creating an image or argument that favors somebody’s particular interests.

• Information Operations

  Information Operations (IO or soft power) includes influence the behavior of your adversary with the intent of impacting their decision-making. IO may include cyber attacks against target information systems and their ability to make timely and accurate decisions. IO is commonly associated with the disruption, corruption, or direct modification of the decision-making of your targets while protecting your own from the same fate.

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