Matt Armstrong
Contemporary security discourse is frequently captured by a false narrative on new forms of warfare. The recent emergence of the term “cognitive warfare” is a symptom of this misconception, suggesting a novel evolution in warfare that does not exist. This form of non-military aggression was not unknown to us; on the contrary, at the onset of the Cold War, the United States profoundly understood the critical importance of public opinion to national security, both domestically and within nations abroad. American leadership recognized that the Soviet Union, and later China, waged political warfare that specifically targeted these populations to undermine the United States without firing a shot.
However, despite this early recognition, American strategic thought succumbed to a “Maginot mentality”—a term Henry Kissinger used in 1955 to describe a rigid belief in a strategy that precluded the consideration of alternatives. As Kissinger argued, this mentality fostered an “all-or-nothing” military policy that relied heavily on the threat of general war, leaving the United States paralyzed in the face of “gray area” aggressions that fell short of total conflict. This strategic paralysis was not limited to nuclear deterrence; it extended to conventional military operations as well. Political and economic barriers rightly limited the United States’ ability to deploy troops abroad, but the real failure lay in failing to recognize that the threats in these areas were political rather than military.
No comments:
Post a Comment