Fifth-gen Warfare and You
Fifth-generation warfare, otherwise known as psychological warfare or cognitive warfare, involves psychological manipulation of opponents and plays a key role in NATO’s current battle strategy of “hybrid warfare.” This includes manipulating social media by means of social engineering and neurolinguistic programming, “flooding” media with misinformation, bots and troll farms, censorship, cyberattacks, and deployment of artificial intelligence and fully autonomous systems, along with other advanced propaganda techniques. Described as a war of “information and perception,” psychological warfare is now widely used by governments as well as non-state actors such as corporate saboteurs, chaos agents, various nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), astroturf corporations and intelligence cutouts, and mercenary psyop units.
Modern warfare is carried out over five domains — land, sea, air, space, and cyberspace. Cyberspace is a relative newcomer to the domains of warfare. It is important not to confuse the fifth domain of warfare — cyberspace — with cyberwarfare, as cyberwarfare is merely one facet of modern fifth-gen warfare. The tactics of fifth-gen warfare can be combined with those of the other four generations.
Fifth-gen warfare primarily targets conscious thought and cognition, with the exception of neurolinguistic programming and “cognitive” warfare technologies. Cognitive warfare involves a different approach than most classical fifth-gen warfare strategies and tactics, and specifically targets the subconscious mind.
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