Cognitive Warfare – A New Era of War
and How to Defeat It
Technology and Neuroscience – The New Missiles
Have you happened to notice the amount of disinformation and misinformation occurring lately? It is everywhere! Find it in main stream media, alternative media and social media. It’s hard not to notice, and it’s tough to get away from. But why? There
are reasons this is happening!
The New War
Militaries are waging a new kind of war in this era. The war is not about guns or tanks or even hypersonic missiles….it is about your brain and your mind! 
If you feel like you might not be affected by this war, or you do not recognize that it is happening, think back to the last time you had so much information on a particular topic, that you were not sure what to believe anymore. Yes, information overload is one of the tactics, and the confusion and cognitive dissonance it creates are the bullets being fired at your brain. They are currently waging this tactic along with many others .
The military is now studying your brain to find out their next war tactic. Enemies are waging this war not only on the military, but also on the populace. The battlefield is the entire world. According to a study published by the Allied Command Transformation, a division of NATO, “The modern concept of war is not about weapons, but about influence. Victory in the long run will remain solely dependent on the ability to influence, affect, change or impact the cognitive domain.” (1)
This type of war is designed to affect memory, learning, cognitive speed, wake-sleep cycles, fatigue and alertness, impulse control, mood, anxiety, and self-perception, decision-making, trust and empathy, and movement and performance including speed, strength, stamina, motor learning, etc. That is nearly all human functioning capabilities! These affectations are due to manipulation of the mind – conscious and subconscious.
Collecting Data
Did you ever wonder how your internet and social media ads always seem to be so tailored just for you? You didn’t think it was a coincidence, did you? The most ingenious, and most manipulative, deceptive part about this kind of war, is that much of the time it goes undetected.
This type of warfare preys on human weaknesses, including emotional traumas, fears(Is FEAR Making Us Stupid?), and basic negative human patterns and tendencies. It triggers us without setting off alarms. It becomes ingrained in daily activities, thoughts, patterns, and, eventually, beliefs. This type of war is insidious, invasive, and often goes unnoticed by the unstudied individual. It IS that social media post that made you angry, or that news story that made you sad, or that meme that made you laugh your ass off. To the enemy, those memes and posts are sources of data.
The data is used to determine likes, dislikes, fears, in short, what we call triggers, in order to make a person believe a certain thing, which, in turn, causes them to feel a certain way. Once data has been collected, habits studied, and patterns noted, humans become a commodity in the new cognitive war. It is more than a bit disconcerting to think that nations of people are now merely pawns in a larger game that, for the most part, they are not aware of.
Farming Data
Data mining is the tool of choice that helps to develop the cognitive warfare tactics. This data mining extends far beyond social media. Our very “smart” phones are a literal gold mine for the data farms. The data is potentially an asset to the enemy in the new Cognitive War. All of the information we put in our apps, give to our doctors, provide to our employers, and share on social media is a potential target.
Phone apps, in particular, are an excellent source of data. There is an app for that! There is an app for everything, and a reason for the app. As helpful as they may be, those apps easily harvest data and store it, where it is supposedly secure….somewhere in the cloud, or worse, on some server sitting in the middle of Kansas. And just when you begin to believe that those privacy policies, in which an app agrees to NOT sell your data, are protecting you, the latest “hacker” comes up with a way to breach it. How many data breaches can you count, just over the past year alone? Was your data among the breached data? Perhaps many have their stolen data sitting on a server in a foreign country.
Using Data
Once the data is sitting on the server, available to the enemy, just how will they use it? It is said that the new warfare is not only focused on swaying our opinions, but also on changing the way that we think. If you just take a second to consider the previous sentence, you will comprehend the principle behind the idea. If you sway someone’s opinion regarding a particular subject in one instance, you could call that a battle victory; but if you change someone’s entire way of thinking, it’s pretty safe to say you have won the war.
As an example, I might be able to persuade you on your next trip to the ice cream shop to get chocolate instead of vanilla, but if I can somehow convince you that vanilla is bad for you, then you will never choose that flavor again. The latter tactic is a change in a belief, and therefore, in the thinking pattern itself. It causes a permanent change in what you believe, and therefore the way you think.
Programmed
As a hypnotherapist, I recognize this for what it is – programming. If you are interested in learning how people are programmed please check out my article on programming. What makes this particular programming so incredibly powerful, is that it takes collective mental and emotional weaknesses, and magnifies them, using them to help institute the programming.
For instance, there are certain collective ideals we are brought up with that can potentially be used against us. For example, most of us were raised to believe that prejudice is wrong. Therefore, if we display any sort of “racism,” (whichever floating definition of the word you choose to use), we are bad. In truth it is very natural for people to notice differences between themselves and others. Our human mind inherently categorizes in order to keep things organized and distinguish who we are amongst others, but more importantly to keep us safe. So you can understand how creating an environment where everything is racist (in the broadest definition of the word – which we are seeing currently), subliminally, makes everyone feel bad, or wonder if they are bad, much of the time.
Weakening
Feeling bad about ourselves lowers our energy level and, therefore, our defenses. It causes undue stress. In this weakened state, someone is much more likely to fall prey to the enemy, or to be more susceptible to other tactics, than when their energy is strong and focused. Imagine a friend calls you a racist over and over. After awhile it might make a person feel pretty bad. In Cognitive Warfare, our mind takes the place of the friend. Our subliminal mind does the dirty work, whispering, “racist,” in our heads over and over, as we subliminally demolish ourselves due to a perfectly natural, inherent, human tendency to want to categorize diversity. But this is only one of the war tactics being used. One added bonus to this particular tactic is that it also causes division amongst people.
Division
Division is a key tool when it comes to the destruction of friends, neighbors, communities, couples, families, or even nations. How many people have been rejected, disowned or shunned by family or friends due to their political or medical beliefs recently? Division occurs because we do not want to be labeled “bad,” or “wrong.” When we feel bad or wrong, the answer is to make someone else “bad and wrong,” then we can be “good and right.” This creates division in relationships and energy.
Division splits a person’s energy between that which they are pushing toward, and that which they are pushing against. Concentration and focus is not achievable as long as energy is moving in two or more directions. The more divided a person, the weaker they are, just as the more divided a nation, the weaker it is. Cognitive Warfare makes use of the division tactic frequently.
What Can We Do?
So let’s have a discussion about answers. Is the answer to quit providing information about ourselves, stop engaging in social media, and to cease watching television and news? No! In fact, those solutions feed directly into the division tactic. The answer is to become impervious to the tactics of the Cognitive Warfare.
Becoming Bullet-Proof – Know Thyself
Becoming impervious to this type of warfare is no easy task, however, otherwise, why would it make for such a strategic tactic? Being impervious requires leaving our fears and triggers behind. It requires facing the false beliefs that we have probably carried for decades. It requires knowing and accepting our humanity, our human tendencies and weaknesses. Basically, defeating Cognitive Warfare requires knowing ourselves to the fullest extent.
This sounds pretty easy, right? If I ask people how well they know themselves they usually reply in the affirmative, meaning they believe they know themselves pretty well. But most people have parts of themselves they do not see, they choose not to see, or that they do not acknowledge or want to acknowledge. The new warfare targets parts in the aforementioned scenarios. When we do not acknowledge parts of ourselves, others can manipulate us through those parts.
What causes particular thoughts that roam through our minds? Why do particular songs make us feel a particular way? Why does one circumstance make you angry, but not make me angry? Can you control your own thoughts? How do thoughts cause emotions? How and when do emotions surface? Each of us, individually, must learn to answer these questions for ourselves. We must come to know ourselves in a way that does not allow for any manipulation of our thoughts or emotions.
United We Stand
We must find common ground amongst ourselves. As families, communities and nations, our difference must not be a divisive force. We must focus on our similarities, those ideas and concepts that connect us, and those traits and characteristics that bring us together. We must learn to notice division in our energy, and nurture and establish focus on a positive future. This may all sound very idealistic, simpleton, and cliche, but it is the elephant in the room. It is the truth that is staring us in the face while we refuse to see it.
The teachings of hypnosis are a wonderful guiding tool in these tasks. We might not believe, and we may not know it, but hypnosis occurs everyday. We are hypnotized by our televisions and our devices, and by those people who seem to us, hypnotizing. Militaries and governments are using this technique in our world. Knowing this technique is in use, would we not do well to educate ourselves in the ways of manipulation?
A Real War
This war is real, as demonstrated by the dedication of manpower and the emerging truths that we are discovering today. The destruction that our world is currently experiencing is also very real. Its effects have crossed over the barrier from the mental realm, into the physical realm, and that is their diabolical purpose. Much of this destruction is occurring due to misinformation, disinformation, blatant bald-faced lies, or a bit of each. This war has been an unwanted draft for most. We did not choose it, but it is our war nonetheless. It is now our duty educate ourselves, wake up, and become aware of what is happening.
1. Cognitive Warfare; November 2020 François du Cluzel; Innovation Hub; Allied Command Transformation; https://www.innovationhub-act.org/sites/default/files/2021-01/20210122_CW%20Final.pdf
