Cognitive Warfare: the Silent Reconfiguration of Society

Abstract

The nature of conflicts and warfare in the twenty-first century extends beyond traditional physical confrontation and increasingly shifts towards a deeper terrain: the human mind, cultural processes, and the symbolic structures that sustain social life. Contemporary warfare is no longer confined to the contestation of territory; it also involves intervening in the ways societies interpret reality, process information, and make collective decisions. Through the management of perceptions, emotions, narratives, and information flows, cognitive warfare seeks to shape behaviours, influence public opinion, and reconfigure social and political subjectivities, often without the targeted populations being fully aware of these processes.