Cognitive warfare: The mind as a battlefield

It takes time for new phenomena to receive a name that universally labels them. The expression 'fake news' has been spreading as a perfect symbol of the political era we have entered, where lies are used by democratic rulers without any shame and their co-religionists close ranks with them. A broader term is 'disinformation', but even this falls short of new practices related to social networks, such as 'memetic wars': the use of memes to erode the image of others through jokes and, if necessary, to direct electoral support or rejection in certain directions. We are facing a space of confrontation between agents of all subject -governmental and non-governmental- where the new modes and instruments develop what some call 'cognitive warfare'. It would become a new 'quasi-domain' in which to wage war: no longer the cybernetic domain itself, even though it is mostly carried out in cyberspace, but in the minds of people.

Cognitive warfare' is the concept that Daniel Iriarte is committed to, described in the phrase chosen for the book's cover: "How states, companies, spies and terrorists use your mind as a battlefield". According to Iriarte, it is a phenomenon that "seeks to hack the mind, bombarding our brains until it modifies our way of reasoning and provoking a quiet change foreseen by the aggressor who has designed the psychological operation, leading us to act in the way he expects". If the 'information warfare' considered by the military doctrine of some countries aimed to control the flow of information, "cognitive warfare degrades the ability to know, produce and deal with knowledge," says an author quoted in the book. "This new mode of conflict capitalizes on the exponential technological advances that have defined the 21st century," notes another expert referring to artificial intelligence, machine learning, 'big data' analysis and other new technologies, providing "an arsenal of tools that can change the tides of public opinion"; "whereas traditional conflicts sought territorial conquest or political subjugation, cognitive warfare aims at the conquest of minds and the subjugation of beliefs."

First, logically, is the definition, but Daniel Iriarte's work is not at all theoretical, quite the contrary: the book is full of examples of everything that has happened in this field in recent years, from Russia's attempts to interfere in the U.S. presidential elections, to the farms of bots and trolls fed by opaque organizations or the well-known meme campaigns with unconfessed objectives. The book is very well documented; it is evident that Iriarte has been writing down data and collecting material for this research, in some aspects partially unveiled in articles that the author has been writing in 'El Confidencial', of which he is one of the best and solid signatures on international politics. These are not sensationalist pages, nor do they make light accusations; Iriarte's work constitutes an important reference letter for the study of this phenomenon.

It is true that, in a way, there is nothing new under the sun and that in all historical times there have been those who have cultivated the art and science of getting others to act according to the will of the persuader. However, the latest technological developments and the domination they exert over us - in a society of millions of individuals who interact more with electronic devices than with their fellow citizens - are having alarming consequences. It is worth mentioning one of the cases recounted by Iriarte: how a completely unknown candidate won the first round of elections in Romania in 2024 and could have become president, thanks to Moscow's digital maneuvers, had he not been disqualified by the evidence of this external interference. If a month before the elections, Calin Georgescu had only 1% of support in the polls and in four weeks he won over the other candidates with 23%, what could not happen in so many other places and with another subject of operations: this has only just begun.