A new study by researchers at the NATO Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence, in collaboration with Ukrainian researchers in the field of security science, presents a fundamental reconceptualisation of cognitive warfare.
Existing approaches typically describe the effects, actors, or technological dimensions of cognitive influence, yet leave a more fundamental question unanswered: what exactly makes a socio-technical system vulnerable to cognitive attack? Why do some societies destabilise under cognitive operations while others maintain resilience?
This study offers an answer. The analysis centres not on individual types of informational or psychological influence, but on the ontological foundations of any social system – so-called systemic invariants: stable linkages and structures that determine how a system interprets reality, establishes trust, makes decisions, and coordinates action. Such invariants include epistemic frameworks (what the system holds to be true), value systems, elements of collective identity, trust architectures, and visions of the future. It is these that sustain a system’s coherence and its capacity to act as an integrated whole, to adapt, and to develop.
From this perspective, cognitive warfare is understood not as a contest over information, but as a contest over the structures of its interpretation and decision-making. Influence operates through the inter-layer linkages of a system’s multiplex architecture. The disruption of these linkages produces cognitive decoherence – a condition in which the system continues to function formally, yet loses its capacity for coordinated action.
The practical significance of this approach lies in its capacity to reframe both attack mechanisms and the logic of defence. Cognitive security is not merely about countering disinformation or propaganda; it is fundamentally about maintaining the coherence of a system’s core structures: trust, identity, epistemic standards, and strategic orientation.
The study further demonstrates that the logic of cognitive attack differs according to system type. In authoritarian regimes, influence targets the dominant narrative through the amplification of uncertainty. In democratic systems, it targets the inter-layer linkages, inducing polarisation and eroding the capacity for coordination.
By distinguishing cognitive from information warfare at the ontological level, the authors establish a foundation for shifting from reactive countermeasures to proactive vulnerability diagnostics and the strengthening of cognitive resilience as a strategic societal asset.
Read the full article in CCDCOE Library here.
Illustrative photo: Bhautik Patel, Unsplash.