Cognitive Warfare and the AI-Driven Defense Ecosystem in Great Power Competition

Cognitive warfare has rapidly emerged as a new arena of great power competition, characterized by battles for influence over perception and decision-making rather than dominance of physical territory. It denotes warfare waged in the mind —both human minds and increasingly the algorithms that inform them—where adversaries seek to shape how targets think and decide. This concept goes beyond propaganda or cyberattacks; it is about gaining strategic advantage by controlling the “cognitive domain” of conflict. Major powers are recognizing this domain as critical.

NATO studies describe cognitive warfare as targeting “the brain to gain cognitive advantage,” exploiting psychological and informational vulnerabilities to weaken an adversary’s resolve and system resilience. In practice, cognitive operations aim to influence public opinion, strategic calculations, and even automated decision-support systems in order to achieve objectives with minimal conventional force. With the rise of advanced artificial intelligence (AI) and big-data analytics, this battleground has expanded: whoever masters AI-enabled perception-shaping tools may steer events before the first shot is fired. As this analysis will show, cognitive warfare is distinct from traditional information warfare, yet deeply intertwined with it, and its rise is catalyzing new doctrines and a new ecosystem of AI-driven defense companies that blur the lines between military power and information power in the 21st century.

Definition and Origins – Beyond Information Warfare: Cognitive warfare is conceptually distinct from classical information warfare and disinformation campaigns, though it builds on elements of both. Information warfare typically focuses on controlling the flow of information (for example, jamming communications or spreading propaganda), and disinformation specifically involves the dissemination of false or misleading content to deceive. Cognitive warfare, by contrast, targets the process of cognition itself – “influencing the opponent’s reasoning, decisions, and ultimately, actions”.