MILITARY APPLICATIONS OF COGNITIVE SCIENCES: COGNITIVE WARFARE, A MATTER OF PERCEPTION AND MISPERCEPTION

Abstract

he concept of cognitive warfare is steadily gaining more and more attention in security and defense discourse. By employing a cognitive psychology perspective, the article is examining how perception and/or misperception factor into cognitive mapping of strategic and operational concepts. The central aim of the paper is to outline that the approach to the human domain is deeply rooted in nationally conditioned perception. The article is looking to achieve this academic goal by comparing the NATO conceptualization of cognitive warfare to the Russian Federations'. The structure is as follows: first there is a brief review of the cognitive psychology paradigm, especially key concepts as they relate to the scope of the paper. The subsequent sections compare the NATO cognitive warfare approach to the opposing view, namely the one of the Russian security and defense apparatus. The "special military operation" in Ukraine initiated by the Kremlin in 2022 confirmed that in the event of a territorial aggression against a NATO member state, the alliance as a whole remains the basis of European security and defense posture. It is for this very reason that the alliance ought to objectively analyze how Russian decision makers perceive Western perspective in the cognitive realm.