# Cognitive Warfare **Domain:** Security studies / Cognition **Doc Type:** Developed Emerging-Doctrine Node **Maturity:** Developed **Collection:** [[collections/Gamification|Gamification Collection]] ## Definition **Cognitive warfare** is an emerging and contested security concept describing efforts to influence, disrupt, or exploit human cognition and collective sense-making as an operational objective. It can encompass information operations, behavioral influence, social-media manipulation, psychological techniques, and cyber-enabled effects. ## Significance The concept shifts attention from control of messages to control of decision environments. In a gamified enclosure, the relevant targets may be trust, attention, identity, perceived affordances, and confidence in the possibility of adjudication. There is no single settled NATO doctrine that makes every use of the term equivalent. Policy papers, innovation studies, alliance discussions, and national concepts must be distinguished. The phrase should not medicalize disagreement or turn ordinary persuasion into an act of war. ## Sources - NATO Innovation Hub, [Cognitive Warfare](https://www.innovationhub-act.org/sites/default/files/2021-01/20210122_CW%20Final.pdf) - NATO Review, [Countering cognitive warfare](https://www.nato.int/docu/review/articles/2021/05/20/countering-cognitive-warfare-awareness-and-resilience/index.html) ## Routes [[articles/Cognitive-Cyber Warfare Measures and Countermeasures|Cognitive-Cyber Warfare Measures and Countermeasures]] · [[wiki/Epistemic Injury|Epistemic Injury]] · [[wiki/Truth Decay|Truth Decay]] · [[wiki/Hybrid Warfare|Hybrid Warfare]]