Recognizing the sixth front: The cognitive domain and disinformation during the COVID-19 pandemic
Recognizing the cognitive domain would further expand NATO’s capabilities into a non-kinetic area. This declaration would empower NATO to address areas and help orient the Alliance's shared security towards an increasingly more sophisticated threat. Treating this threat as the sixth front instead of including it in one of the other five fronts would grant flexibility and autonomy to address threats to human cognition. This declaration could apply regardless of the environment. For instance, it could help with multidisciplinary threats such as hybrid warfare. Or cultural threats such as ethnocentrism. These threats do not always take place physically or digitally. Rather, the conflict takes place inside the mind, which I will clarify later.
Such a move would also increase clarity and thus provide better leadership for society to address threats that seek to use ambiguity to cause damage. Threats found in hybrid warfare are not immediately clear when compared to traditional kinetic threats. The ambiguity itself can enhance their effect. Providing clear leadership can help with overcoming this ambiguity. Declaring the cognitive domain as a sixth front provides intention and the clarity required to lead. As society's understanding of how humans think grows, so too may the threats facing us. This declaration can position NATO to address cognitive threats as they evolve over time.
Simplistically, the cognitive front focuses on human cognition. Threats to human cognition can target a person’s will, perception, beliefs, and how they think: “Cognitive warfare pursues the objective of undermining trust...therefore the individual becomes the weapon, while the goal is not to attack what individuals think but rather the way they think.”[i] During the pandemic, trust in public officials, particularly public health officials, became very important. Public health officials assumed the responsibility to communicate any precautions required to mitigate the spread of COVID-19. Eroding this trust became a target of disinformation. This created a worse situation as reluctance to follow public health guidelines set in. People became reluctant to follow guidelines from health officials, resulting in greater damage.
This declaration could also help with hybrid threats focusing on society. Hybrid warfare “targets vulnerabilities across societies in ways that we do not traditionally think about.”[ii] Trust in public health officials is an intrinsic mechanism of public credibility. Normally, public health officials could use this trust to motivate people to take precautionary measures against COVID-19. We may take this relationship for granted. However, during the pandemic, disinformation and ethnocentrism targeted the ability of public officials to communicate effectively. This hampered society's ability to fully implement strategies to mitigate the severity of COVID-19. This resulted in cascaded damages in other parts of society including economic and political costs in addition to damaging public health.
Targeting society in this way may fall below the threshold of a kinetic attack. As “A hybrid warfare actor can stay below a certain detection and response thresholds,”[iii] expanding into a sixth front can empower NATO to address threats that fall below traditional levels of response. This is important because these threats can have a cumulative effect on the societies they target and require appropriate action. The results of the attacks may not be noticed until well after the threats unfold. During the pandemic, the effects of this lack of trust in public health officials created a worse situation when reluctance to follow their guidelines set in. While no direct, kinetic attack occurred, the effects of targeting this trust still incurred a societal cost. While cost analyses in the United States did occur each day, such as reporting daily mortalities, it is difficult to know how effective this erosion of trust was. The true mortality rate accumulated over time resulting in over 500,000 deaths.
I will try to explain how eroding this public trust through disinformation and ethnocentrism worsened the situation during the COVID-19 pandemic. It was important to recognize these types of threats during the COVID-19 pandemic, as threats like disinformation and ethnocentrism accelerated and continue to accelerate the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. By declaring the cognitive domain as the sixth front, it could empower NATO to take actions relating to non-traditional threats targeting Allies and partner communities.
To illustrate why this is important, disinformation has used ethnocentrism in the Spanish-speaking community in the United States to worsen the situation during the pandemic. Particularly, my focus is on the South Texas Region. If NATO adopts the cognitive domain as the sixth front, it could help provide leadership for this and other communities in all Allied and partner countries. Strengthening Allies’ commitment to Article 3 of the Washington Treaty could also be considered for bolstering the collective defense of this region, and others, in order to prevent any further escalation stemming from cognitive threats. This can be invoked in the near term, or used as a basis to build upon.
Disinformation in the Community
Disinformation is difficult to identify. It requires skills like critical thinking and self-awareness. These skills can be difficult to learn, and educators can help develop these skills. However, in the South Texas area, this type of instruction is not always taught to every level of student, community, or age group, where it can potentially be most effective. Expanding these types of lessons can help increase the resilience of all citizens against malign information, not just a select group of people. Efforts like this are important for community resilience because it helps citizens think critically about their culture and community. It may sound like a common sense skill, but thinking critically in this way is very empowering. It empowers a person to understand when disinformation uses their cultural beliefs against them.
According to a discussion paper by François du Cluzel, “Disinformation preys on the cognitive vulnerabilities of its targets by taking advantage of pre-existing anxieties or beliefs that predispose them to accept false information.”[iv] I will attempt to explain how cultural beliefs in the Spanish-speaking community prevent people from taking steps to mitigate the spread of COVID-19. Disinformation exacerbated the effects of these cultural beliefs. An analysis done by the Disinformation Research Group analyzed the use of disinformation to spread malware in the Spanish-speaking community in the United States. It cites, “Many of the published stories contain information about possible complications or lean skeptically towards vaccine efficacy. The top translated story features the title “The detail that can complicate Moderna and Pfizer vaccines."”[v] While this analysis explains the direct cyber threat of malware proliferation, it also documents the mechanism for how disinformation spreads.
This skepticism or fear of complications from the COVID-19 vaccine resonates culturally with the Spanish-speaking community. It is a challenge for public health officials and institutions to gain the trust of the Spanish-speaking community in areas like South Texas. First, disinformation like this can exacerbate cultural distrust in public health, especially now during the pandemic. There are many groups of people in the South Texas area who have historically not trusted public health officials. Now, they may not always take appropriate risk mitigation practices or even feel like the COVID-19 vaccine is safe. Word of mouth further amplifies this disinformation. People communicate this disinformation in person, then use these articles as relevant sources to validate their claims to other members in the community. Disinformation then targets this cultural distrust in public health and connects that belief to the COVID-19 pandemic. People become more reluctant to take a COVID-19 vaccine. Additionally, it can cause people to not take precautions to prevent the spread of COVID-19, since they do not always trust guidance from public health officials.
This type of belief is rooted in culture, spread by misinformation and disinformation articles online, and made worse by taking advantage of trust mechanisms when it is shared by word of mouth. Thinking critically about one’s culture can help someone understand their self-awareness and cultural vulnerabilities better. Declaring the cognitive sphere as the sixth front could empower communities to understand when their fears, rooted in a culture they take for granted, are made worse by malign information. The hope is that communities could overcome this type of manipulation in order to take concrete steps to improve their situation.
An Opportunity for NATO Leadership
NATO can empower itself to take a leadership role by declaring the cognitive sphere as the sixth front. This can increase public awareness of the occurrence of disinformation. Awareness contributes to legitimizing threats such as disinformation, a good first step for public resilience. The effects of generating public awareness became important during the 2020 Presidential Election. News and media outlets were able to write articles on this topic. Campaigns by the US Government, academia, and civil society expanded resources to counter disinformation. This allowed the media and campaigns to better inform the public.
Efforts like this are evolving to include other forms of disinformation beyond politics and COVID-19. Disinformation is now a publicly stated priority of the U.S. Director of National Intelligence, Avril Haines, and the Senate Intelligence Committee.[vi] These priorities listed by the Director of National Intelligence and Senate Intelligence Committee set goals for U.S. security. Priorities like this can facilitate demand through government funding and support. Over time, this demand can create an industry that can sustain progress against disinformation.
These priorities also help to better align the United States with the European Union's progress in countering disinformation. In Europe, addressing disinformation is more mature than in the United States. NATO declaring this sixth front can help align priorities and standards across all Allies. NATO's leadership can foster a robust industry among all Allies and partner countries that can drive efforts to counter disinformation. As cognitive threats evolve beyond disinformation and ethnocentrism, this declaration positions NATO as a leader to address these new threats. In addition, it can help coordinate responses to multidisciplinary threats such as hybrid warfare attacks. Hybrid threats can fall below the response level of direct attacks. Still, the damages from these threats can accumulate over time. The extent of the damages incurred in a shorter period of time from direct sources might necessitate an immediate response. However, hybrid threats, prolonged over time, can fall below the threshold of requiring action. Declaring the cognitive sphere as the sixth front can more effectively empower NATO to analyze these threats and coordinate an appropriate response to non-kinetic, direct threats.
Including the cognitive sphere as a sixth front can help empower NATO to address these new types of threats. Allies, partners, and adversaries will have a better understanding that NATO is more than a traditional military deterrent. It can also empower NATO to address non-traditional threats like disinformation, ethnocentrism, hybrid warfare, and bolster resilience. These types of threats made worse the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. In the future, declaring the cognitive domain as a sixth front can allow NATO to lead against threats like disinformation in order to mitigate or prevent their effect on a global pandemic. Finally, as cognitive threats evolve, this declaration better positions NATO to lead Allies and partner countries to strengthen their security.
Notes
[i] François du Cluzel, “Cognitive Warfare,” June-November 2020, https://www.innovationhub-act.org/sites/default/files/2021-01/20210113_C..., 8.
[ii] Dr. Patrick J. Cullen and Erik Reichborn-Kjennerud, "MCDC Countering Hybrid Warfare Project: Understanding Hybrid Warfare," MCDC January 2017, 10–12.
[iii] Ibid.
[iv] Cluzel, “Cognitive Warfare.”
[v] Disinformation Research Group, “Spanish-language vaccine news stories hosting malware disseminated via URL shorteners,” December 10, 2020, https://fas.org/disinfoblog/spanish-language-vaccine-news-stories-hostin....
[vi] Martin Matishak, “New Senate intel chief wants to reimagine 'decimated' spy agency,” Politico, February 4, 2020, https://www.politico.com/news/2021/02/04/mark-warner-senate-intel-interv....
Image source: https://www.nato.int/docu/review/articles/2020/11/24/artificial-intellig...