Bill Gertz
A version of this story appeared in the daily Threat Status newsletter from The Washington Times. Click here to receive Threat Status delivered directly to your inbox each weekday.
The Pentagon lacks “strategic clarity” when it comes to conducting the cognitive warfare that analysts see as necessary for confronting China, according to the Senate Armed Services Committee.The committee’s report on the fiscal 2026 defense authorization bill warns that despite congressional action, the Pentagon and military services remain unclear in defining this new domain of nonkinetic warfare, which is a major focus of China’s People’s Liberation Army.
The panel wants the Pentagon to produce a report for Congress on cognitive warfare.Chinese cognitive warfare involves an array of weaponry ranging from “brain control” arms, to sophisticated information warfare operations. The goal, according to the Pentagon’s annual report on the Chinese military, is to manipulate information to attack an adversary’s decision-making abilities.
“The PLA is exploring a range of ‘neurocognitive warfare’ capabilities that exploit adversaries using neuroscience and psychology,” the latest report said.Examples include plans to use artificial intelligence-powered deepfake videos to mislead and confuse military and political leaders during conflicts, and psychological warfare to demoralize U.S. troops and polarize society.PLA researchers are working on advanced voice synthesis tools that will be used for low-cost, high-impact disinformation campaigns to defeat enemies without conventional conflict.
The committee report said the global security landscape is rapidly evolving with the increasing sophistication of information-centric, strategic threats.China, for example, “is actively engaged in developing what it terms ‘informatized warfare’ and ‘intelligentized warfare,’ with a strong emphasis on cognitive domain operations, involving the integration of information warfare across military and civilian sectors and viewing information as a critical domain for achieving strategic advantage in great power competition,” the report said.
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