Towards the Definition of Cognitive Warfare and Related Countermeasures: A Systematic Review

Psychological warfare and hybrid threats are currently one of the greatest risks to the stability of democratic systems, as well as are used to exploit the psychological vulnerability of individuals. Together with the use of disinformation and technologies, cognitive biases of individuals in a population are susceptible to being exploited and manipulated by an external actor in order to alter their behaviour, beliefs and decision-making to achieve their strategic goals. As pointed by NATO, the human mind becomes the battlefield in cognitive warfare, targeting not only individuals but also group behaviours in favor of an adversary’s objectives. The aim of this research is therefore the revision of cognitive warfare and hybrid threats definitions to draw a set of countermeasures intended to mitigate their effects. Even when cognitive warfare has been widely covered by the different miliary doctrines since early times, its implications in modern warfare scenarios are constantly evolving so that requiring a context-aware analysis as the main driver to underpin possible countermeasures from the governmental and political perspectives, as presented in this work. The analysis explores the cognitive impact and scope of psychological warfare on a national scale, as well as at the individual level within a context of proliferating disinformation, technologies, and manipulation.