Commentary: The West is losing the cognitive war with Russia and China

There is a new global war raging, and the West is losing. It is not the war in Ukraine, though that is the most visible front. It is the fierce but largely unrecognized global war in the cognitive domain, where our enemies, particularly Russia and China, have gained the upper hand. And let us be crystal clear: Despite the Trump administration’s recent flip-flop, Russia and China are sworn enemies of the United States. The winner of this war will dominate the future competition for global power and influence.

Put simply, cognitive warfare is the strategic manipulation of information and redirection of perception for the purpose of waging war and achieving war goals. It is the source for understanding threats, the values worth defending, and the reason and the will to fight. Russia and China each dedicate substantial resources to cognitive warfare. Their budget allocation for cognitive warfare is estimated to be in the billions. By comparison, the West invests significantly less, other than techno-centric operations such as cybersecurity and cyber resilience.

Cognitive warfare encompasses operations that affect the way conflict is perceived. Its key premise is that wars are ultimately won or lost in the human mind. Populations will endure hardship and deprivation when they perceive mass injustice. Inferior forces will fight against impossible odds in support of strongly held beliefs. People, and armies, can undergo 180-degree changes in opinion when their perceptions change. Cognitive warfare includes misinformation and disinformation operations, influence operations and narrative operations.

Russia and China wage cognitive warfare relentlessly and with ever greater skill and effectiveness, united in their “no-limits” hatred of Western and particularly U.S. dominance, while flooding the zone with strategic narratives that position them as the “good guys.” Note China’s success at claiming the higher moral ground with its narrative proclaiming a “common destiny for all mankind,” and the win-win benefits of the Belt and Road Initiative. Or Russia’s claim to be the guardian of traditional, conservative values while demanding respect for its dominance over its neighbors.

The common thread of our enemies’ efforts in the cognitive domain is the enduring injustice of Western colonialism and the need for a diminished West in a multipolar world. These meretricious narratives play well throughout the Global South. One need only note the widening acceptance of the absurd lie that Ukraine is at fault for the unprovoked Russian invasion of its land or that NATO has been the historical aggressor. Or the growing popularity of the BRICS organization as the alternative to Western dominance.

The West has potentially powerful weapons and indeed won the great cognitive war of the 20th century when all the elements of national strength — diplomatic, informational, military and economic — were aligned in pursuit of the triumph of democracy and free markets. That was the greatest cognitive victory of our lifetimes; it brought down the Soviet empire, its satellite communist states and Marxist ideology. But today, the West is in cognitive paralysis, hobbled by bureaucratic inertia, toxic in-fighting, anachronistic legal and ethical constraints, and a crippling fear of escalation.

The willful reluctance of Western policymakers to recognize the importance of cognitive warfare carries the risk of irreversible losses in power and influence worldwide, the key factors that determine strategic outcomes in global competition. Their absence empowers and emboldens Russia and China.

Some Western nations recognize the importance of cognitive warfare and have policies, practices and even institutions to compete in the cognitive space. Sweden recently established a psychological defense agency; France created Viginum in the office of the president; and the Nordic and Baltic countries have embraced the concept of total defense. However, even these are limited primarily to defensive operations such as detection, exposure and resilience. The offensive toolbox is empty.

Sadly, the United States, though at the forefront throughout the Cold War, has lost the edge in cognitive warfare. The recent elimination of the State Department’s Global Engagement Center, the reckless dismantling of the United States Agency for International Development, the gutting of Voice of America and Radio Free Asia, and the habitual relegation of information warfare to an annex in Department of Defense war planning, which offers no military career path, combine to deprive the United States of the most potent tools of cognitive warfare. The alleged suspension of information operations aimed at Russia and growing mistrust between the United States and its European allies open wide the aperture for foreign information and influence warfare.

These are self-inflicted wounds. All that remain to exert influence and power are military threats and economic sanctions. Russia and China both know that the military threats are hollow. Both have taken the necessary steps to insulate themselves from the effects of Western economic sanctions and have effectively countered the measures on which the West has staked its security.

Only a paradigm shift can disrupt this careless march toward defeat. The notion that China and Russia are just competitors is quaint but wrong. They are enemies intent on overthrowing the Western-embraced, liberal, rules-based global order. The credulous faith that these superpowers will voluntarily settle for some form of peaceful coexistence, if only they are sufficiently propitiated with concessions, is naive and dangerous. If the West wishes to protect the values it cherishes, it must fight for them. It must seize the offensive.

Cognitive warfare is real warfare. Winning or losing matters. Absent understanding of the threat, of the values that need defending, and of the underlying reason and will to fight, the most advanced artificial intelligence will not save the day.

If the West loses the competition for cognitive dominance, neither firepower nor technology will be able to prevent its authoritarian enemies — Russia and China — from prevailing in this war.

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Michael Miklaucic is a former senior fellow at National Defense University and editor-in-chief emeritus of the national and international security affairs journal PRISM. He is currently lecturer at the University of Chicago and professor of security studies at the University of Sao Paulo in Brazil.

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