Recent violations of the airspaces of Poland, Romania and Estonia illustrate how Russia uses psychological operations to distort perceptions and manipulate behaviour – effectively setting a cognitive trap. Both underreaction and overreaction risk provoking even more reckless Russian actions in the future, while at the same time deepening public anxiety over possible escalation to an open conflict. Cognitive security – the protection of human perceptual and decision-making processes from external manipulation – offers a useful approach to addressing these rapidly evolving vulnerabilities. It highlights how malign actors exploit such weaknesses to erode trust, undermine societal resilience and threaten transnational security. As a concept, it has emerged only recently, building on military understandings of ‘cognitive warfare’ developed within NATO circles from the early 2000s.
Smoke and mirrors: Building EU resilience against manipulation through cognitive security (Beatrice Catena, Ondrej Ditrych, Nad’a Kovalčíková – European Union Institute for Security Studies)
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