War and the 'Dawn of the Cognetic Age'

Amazingly, the author of this diatribe sees Islamic terrorism as the only opposition to U.S. ideological supremacy. He does have one conclusion that compensates for this narrow point of view: "If our policies support the objectives, we should stay with them; if they do not, we must change them."


" ... Editorial Abstract: Colonel Johnson uses the term “cognetic” to mean putting thought into motion, ideally with global impact. Militant Islam has proven very adept at exploiting the cognetic realm to foment disillusionment and advance its agenda. The author urges the United States, starting with policy makers responsible for national security, to adopt and apply cognetic thinking in order to reorient US grand strategy so that the nation can wage and win ideological warfare.

This article introduces the term cognetic, coined by the author from the root words cognitive (relating to thought process) and kinetic (relating to, caused by, or producing motion). Currently, the term lacks a single, accepted meaning. I intend to use it in a unique way in order to define the essence of today's fast-moving, unrestrained, nonstop global media (the Internet and transnational television) and their effect on public opinion and behavior. To be cognetic is to put thought in motion with impact. Thought takes the form of messages created by specific arrangements of images, sounds, and words. Motion signifies the global media's unrestrained and rapid movement of messages to a target audience. Impact represents the effect on public opinion and behavior caused by perceptions generated by the message. Violent public reactions in the Muslim world to the publication of cartoons depicting Muhammad in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten and to Pope Benedict XVI's remarks about Islam epitomize the term cognetic—putting thought in motion with a global impact.¹

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The nature of warfare in the Cognetic Age is ideological—something inherently antithetical to conventional war because “an idea cannot be destroyed with a bullet or a bomb; it must be replaced by a better idea.”

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Unlike bombs and bullets—the effective conventional weapons of the Industrial Age—imagery, sounds, and words serve as the effective ideological weapons of the Cognetic Age.
Target: Public Opinion
Abraham Lincoln once observed that “our government rests in public opinion. Whoever can change public opinion, can change the government, practically just so much.”¹⁰ His message cuts to the heart of a major lesson of war, namely, that those who most effectively master the medium of communication which influences public opinion can determine the outcome of wars. Many examples from our own short history reinforce this statement.

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Warfare by maneuver stems from a desire to circumvent a problem by attacking it from a position of advantage rather than meeting it straight on. With its goal the application of strength against weakness, maneuver, by definition, relies on speed and surprise because without either, one cannot concentrate strength against an enemy's weakness. Tempo, itself a weapon—often the most important—in turn requires decentralized control. Although attrition operates principally in the physical realm of war, maneuver produces both physical and moral results. Maneuver seeks not so much to destroy physically as to shatter the enemy's cohesion, organization, command, and psychological balance.¹⁵
Maneuver warfare focuses on the human (moral-psychological) element—the true center of gravity of any type of warfare—making it an excellent basis for cognetics. On close inspection, the principles of maneuver warfare largely apply to the way militant Islam employs global media to carry out cognetic attacks on public opinion.

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Samuel B. Griffith's translation of The Art of War offers insight into how Sun Tzu sought to win without fighting, eerily paralleling how militant Islam and other US foes employ cognetics to divide and conquer America and its allies. According to Griffith, “The master conqueror frustrated his enemy's plans and broke up his alliances. He created cleavages between sovereign and minister, superiors and inferiors, commanders and subordinates. His spies and agents were active everywhere, gathering information, sowing dissension and nurturing subversion. The enemy was isolated and demoralized; his will to resist broken. Thus without battle his army was conquered, . . . his state overthrown” (emphasis added).

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By its very nature, every form of warfare is competitive. Winning requires finding and employing the most effective means of gaining an advantage over the opponent. In the Cognetic Age, the global media's power to influence vast numbers of people worldwide gives militant Islam an advantage over the West in the ideological war.
Continuing at a disadvantage by emphasizing conventional military solutions to fight an ideological war will only draw out this conflict. Thus, counteracting the long-war premise requires a decisive change in thinking to reorient our current grand strategy away from its heavy emphasis on conventional military force toward one that focuses on fighting an ideological war. This does not mean abandoning the punishing stick of military force. We will still need it for coercive effect to some degree, but it will not win the war. To win, we must neutralize militant Islam's advantage in the global media.

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We must adopt cognetic thinking to create a shared, systematic way of conceptualizing, communicating, and carrying out ideological warfare against militant Islam. The top US strategy documents all recognize that winning the war against this foe requires winning the battle of ideas. Cognetics provides the terminology, concepts, principles, and system needed to harmonize diverse government entities into a coherent and cohesive whole, thus enabling the government to mount a well-coordinated and effective ideological assault on militant
Islam. ... "

~ From Fighting Ideological War by Putting Thought in Motion with Impact ~