The importance of cognitive dominance
The information domain has always been of great importance in conflicts, both armed and unarmed. But especially since the Cold War and the emergence of the internet in the early 1990s, along with the advent of mobile technology and simple encryption, the conflict paradigm has changed substantially.
The complexity of 4th generation conflicts, which have become more decentralized than before, has opened up wider and more varied fronts in which it is necessary to engage, in order to control the development of the conflict. Mobile phones and social networks represent an extremely powerful tool for the population to make its opinion known, but they also allow general sentiment to be influenced, if appropriate techniques are employed. Along with the traditional domains of land, sea, air and space (the latter is a recent addition), the cognitive domain is developed in cyberspace and the “weaponry” used is information (or disinformation) specifically directed at particular targets or groups to elicit reactions that favour the goals of the “attacker” (in the classical sense of the word).
While some proponents already define conflicts that are “conducted through social engineering, disinformation, cyber-attacks, artificial intelligence and autonomous agents” as fifth generation, others lump them squarely into fourth generation. But regardless of the number, the cognitive domain has a clear strategic and tactical role in today’s conflicts, especially low-intensity and asymmetric ones.
Monitoring, the first step in controlling the cognitive domain
As in all other military operations, the first step is a reconnaissance of the terrain on which one wants to act, although in this case the “terrain” is virtual. By knowing the state of the news in a geographical area (city, region or country), as well as the sentiment of the population, it is possible to design the appropriate strategies to achieve the desired objectives. In the case of the cognitive domain, these are usually related to forming a favourable or unfavourable opinion about something or assessing how a particular action would impact public opinion.
Such conflicts have a blurred line between political, intelligence and military actions, but this is the current paradigm. Fortunately, thanks to the Internet, monitoring cyberspace related to specific geographic areas is very easy. Platforms such as Intelion by ISID allow monitoring of open and private radio, television and streaming broadcasts, as well as social networks, automatically locating keywords on a 24/7 basis, with a system of alerts informing designated persons of the latest detections in a timely manner. With the monitoring and analysis of hundreds of simultaneous channels, staffing requirements for surveillance are greatly reduced and are limited to those operatives needed to attend, process and act when detections are made.
AI modules can perform audio transcription, translation of audio if it is not in the desired language, as well as facial or object recognition in video or image broadcasts, or the identification of voices or keywords in communication monitoring. Finally, Intelion can analyse public sentiment regarding certain news or actions using NLP (natural language processing), and determine whether it is positive, negative or neutral.
Intelion analyses the impact and sentiment of online news and social media.
StratCom, the second step
One of the ways to “fight back” in the cognitive domain is through strategic communications. This holistic view of communications uses values and interests to achieve specific objectives. Actions tend to be medium to long term, usually complex, as they take place in a highly competitive environment, such as the Internet, in which there are many other state and private actors, each with their own particular interests.
Given the volatility of current information, Intelion’s constant monitoring allows for rapid feedback on the results of the actions carried out, in order to adapt them if necessary. It also makes it possible to gauge the impact of these actions on the public and on online sentiment.
These information conflicts are often quite wide-ranging and can easily cross over from the purely military to the economic and political spheres, which means that the legality of the actions taken must never be lost sight of, within the framework of national security.
Both information operations (INFOOPS) and psychological operations (PSYOPS) are part of the cognitive domain and can affect the economic and social sphere. They can be aimed at deterrence, neutralisation or even aggression, just as in the classic land, sea and air domains, but with very different implications and the possibility of including civilian targets intentionally or collaterally, as the internet does not distinguish to whom a message or news can reach, especially if the medium of transmission is social media.
In many cases StratCom should be used to prevent the dissemination of disinformation, nowadays known as fake news. Neutralising vectors and actors with hostile intent should be the main goal, along with other strategic objectives that advance one’s own actions.
Conclusion
Today’s military operations are no longer confined exclusively to physical domains, but are now often multi-domain. This requires giving more dimensionality to the strategies employed, because it requires taking into account not only state actors, but also non-state actors. Access to the cognitive domain is no longer limited exclusively to armed forces, but multiple actors, even individuals, can carry out actions that impact on it.
Beyond cyberattacks, impacting the news cycle or public sentiment is possible with some ease and not too many resources, making StratCom increasingly important not only to reinforce self-interest, but also to counter or dampen initiatives by opposing actors. Tools such as Intelion facilitate the analysis of the cognitive domain and make it possible to obtain the necessary intelligence by monitoring 24/7 TV broadcasts, radio, streaming or the social networks themselves, to determine sentiment, locate information vectors and find references to specific actors in a matter of minutes.
ISID is a Spanish and global company that develops solutions and platforms for the processing, analysis, management and storage of audio and video, whether file-based, streaming or live (TV). Its Intelion platform allows 24/7 monitoring of the cognitive domain, including TV broadcasts, radio, streaming, social networks or websites, analysing public sentiment or performing automatic searches for terms, words, faces or objects, with a system of alerts in case of positive detections.
About the Author
Fernando Escudero is an engineer and has been a technology journalist for over 30 years. He currently works in the Marketing and Communications department at ISID, a Spanish company that develops solutions and platforms for AI-powered audio and video processing and analysis.
Fernando Escudero can be reached online at [email protected] and at our company website www.isid.com
