Global Security and Intelligence Studies Volume 5, Number 1, Spring / Summer 2020 | Page 25

The Case for the Sixth Domain of War: Psychological Warfare in the Age of Advanced Technology
Methods of Cyber-Enabled
Psychological Warfare
In his book Thinking, Fast and Slow,
Daniel Kahneman argues that the
way the human mind deals with
information is broken down into two
systems: “System 1” and “System 2.”
System 1 operates automatically and
quickly, with little or no effort and no
sense of voluntary control; System 2
allocates attention to the mental activities
that demand it, including complex
computations. System 1, while
useful to people as a way to deal with
the chaos of the world around them, is
often overrun with subconscious biases.
Ideally, that is when System 2 steps
in to correct the mistakes of System
1; however, according to Kahneman
(2011), “constantly questioning our
own thinking would be impossibly tedious,
and System 2 is much too slow
and inefficient to serve as a substitute
for System 1 in making routine decisions.”
Applying Kahneman’s two systems
theory to the psychological domain
illustrates how cyber-enabled
information warfare tactics can take
advantage of the inherent weaknesses
of the human mind to further agendas
and influence the perceptions and actions
of individuals in the real world.
There are four main types of cyber-enabled
methods that can influence the
human mind in a way that makes it rely
on the quick and impulsive tendencies
of System 1 rather than System 2.
1) Disinformation dissemination via
the internet
As previously noted, the concept of disinformation
is not a new phenomenon.
It is also important to note that “online
disinformation specifically and narrowly
refers to information that is demonstrably
false and deliberately spread
on the internet with the intention of
shaping public opinion. This separates
it from ‘misinformation’ which is false
information, but that may not be deliberately
so” (Raderstorf and Camilleri
2019). Previous tactics of dissemination
of false information included
newspapers, broadcasting, leaflets, etc.
Twenty-first century information warfare
now includes the internet, in particular
social media—cyberspace’s premier
host for social interaction. With
its existence comes a number of distinct
characteristics that can be categorized
as both benefits and vulnerabilities, depending
on which side you are on.
• The speed by which the rate of
disinformation delivery has exponentially
increased via cyberspace,
especially through social media.
Algorithms have been designed to
increase views and shares, quickly
making stories go viral (Nemr and
Gangware 2019), and automated
bot armies can deliver volume and
repetition at high speeds to amplify
messages (Adams 2018).
• The ease of this delivery method
has exponentially increased. One
post can reach millions of targets
because as an online post is not
scalable; it takes the same amount
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