In the mid-2000s, Carlo Jean, one of Italy’s leading experts on strategic studies and geopolitics, observed that “the revolution in information and communication technologies is changing the way military force is employed and is creating new opportunities for conducting so-called “soft warfare”, that is: media warfare, based on propaganda, manipulation, disinformation, and the direct, real-time impact that public opinion exerts on political and military decisions.”
In the two decades that followed Jean’s remarkably prescient observation, the “cognitive domain” – the mind as a battlefield – has played an increasingly important and central role in contemporary conflicts.
Over the past five years, the concept of “cognitive warfare” has gained growing prominence among experts and within intelligence communities. While it encompasses traditional Twentieth-Century concepts such as “propaganda” and “psychological warfare”, it goes beyond them by taking into account recent and extraordinary scientific and technological advances concerning the human mind.
Cognitive warfare – a form of conflict that targets the adversary’s mind and seeks to influence his thinking, perceptions and decision-making – is emerging as one of the most significant threats to Italian and European national security.
Cognitive warfare is increasingly perceived as a security threat because of the growing enhancement of tools for mass influence and psychological manipulation made possible by the proliferation of social media, by the development of artificial intelligence, and by advances in neurosciences and neurotechnologies.
The term “cognitive warfare” encompasses a broad range of activities and techniques employed by both state and non-state actors in times of war and peace alike. These include: psychological operations, the dissemination of destabilizing narratives, disinformation campaigns, the creation of an overloaded and chaotic information environment in which it becomes difficult to distinguish truth from falsehood, the use of “neuro-weapons” capable of altering perceptions and emotions by targeting the brain, acts of symbolic violence, the manipulation of history, cyberattacks designed to spread panic and paralyze decision-making, nuclear threats, and other operations aimed at provoking confusion and polarization within targeted societies.
Liberal democracies – characterized by freedom of expression, the free circulation of ideas, and political pluralism – are particularly vulnerable to cognitive warfare conducted by the following three types of actors:
- Anti-Western authoritarian states – China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea – which have included cognitive warfare into their military and geopolitical strategies. Often working together , these regimes employ cognitive warfare to influence and destabilize liberal democracies in order to progressively reduce the West’s global influence. These regimes have also institutionalized cognitive warfare within their own societies as a tool of authoritarian control and stability.
- Terrorist and extremist organizations – including jihadist groups and far-right and far-left terrorist movements – which use psychological warfare techniques on social media to generate fear and confusion, spread ideologies of hatred and violence, and radicalize individuals and groups.
- Illiberal political parties and movements operating within liberal democratic systems, which use cognitive warfare tools to expand their political support, erode public trust in democratic institutions and disseminate authoritarian narratives.
Cognitive warfare operations seek to shape the target’s perceptions, emotions, thoughts, and decisions in order to achieve specific tactical or strategic objectives. The goal of a cognitive campaign may be limited and short-term, or it may pursue the long-term strategic goal of undermining a society from within by degrading its population’s capacity for rational thought and independent judgment, subverting the very concept of truth and the distinction between truth and falsehood, discrediting institutions, and progressively weakening social cohesion.
Actors engaged in cognitive warfare seek to exploit a range of cognitive and psychological vulnerabilities that are widespread in post-modern Western societies, which are highly individualistic, secularized, and deeply shaped by the internet. These vulnerabilities include:
- The culture of “post-truth,” in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotions and personal beliefs.
- The predominance, to use Daniel Kahneman’s terminology, of “fast thinking” – intuitive and emotion-driven – over “slow thinking,” which is rational and characterized by careful reflection and consideration of facts.
- The tendency to ignore or dismiss information that challenges one’s own opinions and beliefs.
- The fragmentation of society into numerous “echo-chambers” characterized by conformity and groupthink.
Because of its strategic position in the Mediterranean, its membership in NATO and the European Union, its domestic problems of social cohesion , and the widespread lack of a national security and intelligence culture in the Italian political élite, Italy represents an ideal target for actors seeking to undermine the unity of the West.
Italy is not prepared for this new form of warfare. Faced with the threat that cognitive warfare poses to national security and democratic order, our Italy must develop a specific strategy for national cognitive security and psychological defense.
Cognitive security can be defined as the protection of the min, perceptions, and decision-making processes from external manipulation.
Antonio Scala, Research Director at the Italian National Research Council’s Institute for Complex Systems, rightly argues that cognitive security policies must remain compatible with pluralism, freedom of expression, and public oversight of power. They must ensure that the cognitive environment allows individuals, groups, and institutions to orient themselves, correctly evaluate information, and make rational decisions based on verifiable facts. Cognitive security does not undermine liberal democracy: it is one of the essential conditions for liberal democracy’s survival..
According to Scala, cognitive security also requires the “psychological defence” of individuals and communities, that is: their ability to resist and respond to campaigns of psychological destabilization carried out by hostile actors, often during serious domestic or international crises, that disseminate narratives deliberately designed to generate fear, disorientation, confusion, distrust, and a sense of helplessness.
As highlighted by Massimo Panizzi, an expert on cognitive warfare and author of Defense Is Freedom: The Courage to Protect Our Independence, “emotions play a central role in cognitive warfare, preceding and shaping rational thought: fear, indignation, and compassion become instruments of influence”.
According to Panizzi, the most effective strategy to defend democracy against cognitive warfare is cultural, systemic, and based on education that stresses the development of critical thinking. Critical thinking should be considered a key “strategic infrastructure” for protecting the mind from the manipulation of perceptions and emotions.
The importance of culture as the primary means of countering cognitive warfare is also stressed by Lorenza Pigozzi, Executive Vice President and Director of Strategic Communications at Fincantieri. She highlights the crucial role of cultural defense in protecting the foundational narratives of democratic societies from hostile cognitive attacks. The study of history is one of the most important instruments of cultural resistance and resilience against cognitive threats, which often seek to manipulate and falsify collective memory.
According to Pigozzi, addressing this challenge requires “architects of cognitive resilience” equipped with expertise in disciplines such as history, psychology, strategic communication, and artificial intelligence, capable of identifying hostile narratives, analyzing their origins, and developing timely responses to protect the public sphere.
As Federico Oreste Petrozzi – psychologist, psychotherapist, and lecturer in neuro-leadership at the Italian Center for Higher Defense Studies (CASD) – notes, a national cognitive security strategy will require significant investment in developing the “cognitive antifragility” of young people, who represent the primary targets of this form of warfare.
The education of younger generations therefore becomes an issue of growing strategic importance for national security. This point was also emphasised by Beniamino Irdi, CEO of HighGround and Senior Fellow at the German Marshall Fund, during a hearing before the Italian Senate:
“Just as, when facing military threats, emergency resources are allocated to weapons, or when confronting a pandemic they are allocated to vaccines, the education and preservation of the cognitive capacities of our young people must be treated as an existential issue.”
