COGNITIVE WARFARE
THE REAL CHALLENGE OF THE NEAR FUTURE:
“INFLUENCING THE COGNITIVE PERCEPTION OF THE MASSES”.
COGNITIVE WARFARE: AN OPPORTUNITY TO UNDERSTAND WHAT IS HAPPENING AND WHAT WILL HAPPEN.
Cognitive warfare is not an abstract risk for democracies: it is their greatest vulnerability, because it operates through the very freedoms that define them: freedom of information, pluralism and independent individual judgement.
During the twentieth century, conflict expanded from the physical realm into the virtual one, ultimately reaching what is now the sole real speculative objective: controlling the cognitive domain. Democracies are particularly exposed to this threat, which exploits freedom of information and pluralism to directly undermine individual judgement and the collective and individual construction of a sense of reality.
Cognitive warfare does not seek to destroy infrastructure, but to alter how people perceive reality, form beliefs and make decisions. Unlike cyberwarfare (which targets systems) and information warfare (which spreads information disorder and manages perception), the cognitive warfare currently underway seeks to change the very mechanisms of thought, inducing adversaries to willingly do what the attacker has planned, without realising it.
This happens through concrete techniques such as cognitive manipulation and dissipation, memetic warfare, algorithmic hypnosis and strategically manipulated disinformation, also guided by artificial intelligence.
The real defence lies in reorienting the virtual system towards algorithmic principles that cannot be exploited, creating new digital ecosystems that are constructive rather than degrading.
Ugo Piazza
President of European Technology Ethics
Cognitive Warfare
and the Vulnerability of Italian Society
2026
Over the course of the twentieth century, conflict expanded from the physical domain to the cybernetic one, arriving today at a sixth front: the cognitive domain. Democracies are particularly exposed to this threat, which exploits freedom of information and pluralism to strike directly at individual judgment and the collective construction of meaning.
Cognitive warfare does not aim to destroy infrastructure, but to alter the way people perceive reality, form beliefs, and make decisions. Unlike cyberwar (which strikes systems) and infowar (which spreads information disorder and manages perception), K-WAR modifies the very mechanisms of thought, leading the adversary to spontaneously do what the attacker has planned, without realizing it. This happens through concrete techniques such as cognitive manipulation and dissipation, memewarfare, algorithmic hypnosis, and AI-driven disinformation.