book chapter
Cognitive Security and Emotional Warfare: The Science and Practice for Understanding, Analyzing and Preventing the Spread of Violent Extremism in the CENTCOM AOR
Abstract
Non-state armed groups, violent extremist and criminal organizations have been able to resist the most lethal campaigns mounted against them by international coalitions of advanced state armies because of their seemingly endless supply of recruits. Traditional approaches to conflict intervention continue to fail in eradicating violence and terrorism because they do not effectively tackle the problem of “supply”. The intervention solution then becomes a continuous cycle of lethal targeting and engagement of non-state groups’ leaders, rather than focusing on their ability to sustain the conflict by recruiting, mobilizing and weaponizing vast vulnerabilities among civilian communities. This chapter demonstrates the need to shift the focus from offensive to defensive mechanisms that will weaken and destroy extremist and criminal organizations by interrupting their supply of recruits and potential recruits. Given that most of the recruits are almost always military aged young men and women, the author demonstrates the psychological process of weaponization and argues that understanding psychological, sociological, and emotional variables that drive civilian participation into violent extremism is critical for military, diplomatic and humanitarian organizations to effectively intervene in and interrupt the flow of people into violent extremism. © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022.
Author keywords
cognitive security, emotional warfare, human domain, influence operations, terrorism, trauma