This is the second of a series on our nation’s most neglected critical infrastructure, our cognitive infrastructure.

The first post dove into the nature of the challenge and why it is so important for our future that the threats to our cognitive infrastructure are understood and addressed.

This post flows from that one and suggests ways the nation can mitigate many of these risks.

The nation’s cognitive infrastructure includes the mental capacities of our citizens and the decision-making ability of people, organizations and our government. It also includes the information channels used to feed our decision-making capabilities and the education and training systems used to prepare people and organizations for critical thinking.

Our cognitive infrastructure is threatened in ways few of us ever imagined just a few years ago. Old style propaganda has been modernized and is now being aided by advanced technologies and new information dissemination methods.

It is pretty clear that our cognitive infrastructure deserves to be treated with the respect of our other critical infrastructures. Just like the other sectors, the government can have a huge role in protecting it.

Applying lessons from defense of other sectors we can map out a list of considerations for the role of government and the private sector in defense of this infrastructure. We can also inform our defense from lessons learned through years of experience in pushing back against cognitive conflict, including lessons from successes in allied nations (for example, great progress in fighting for fact based defenses has been made in Estonia and the Scandinavian countries focused on countering Russian malign influence operations).

The following is a short list of considerations:

Government Actions:

• Direct DHS to treat this sector with the seriousness it deserves by officially naming it one of the nation’s critical infrastructures.
• Develop and support a clearing house for lessons learned and best practices.
• Support establishment of an ISAC in this sector (a Cognitive Security ISAO has just been stood up, which will be a good foundation for an ISAC).
• Develop counter-propaganda efforts to rapidly counter adversary content
• Improve K-12 education to ensure critical thinking is part of school curriculum
• Find ways to sanction adversaries who seek to manipulate our citizens
• Invest in R&D to improve technological support to our cognitive infrastructure
• Change the legal and regulatory framework to ensure media and tech firms play appropriate roles in mitigating threats to our cognitive infrastructure
• Consider changes to the organizational approaches Congress takes to working issues of our cognitive infrastructure.
• Create methods for allied nations to cooperate in defense of cognitive infrastructure
• Task the intelligence community to achieve deep penetration of adversary capabilities to attack our cognitive infrastructure
• Enhance counterintelligence and other efforts to prevent penetration of businesses by agents of foreign influence

The Role of Industry:

• Support efforts to collegially share information on threats to the cognitive infrastructure by supporting the Cognitive Infrastructure ISAC
• Assist in the development of new regulations and legislation as required
• Propose new approaches and technical solutions to defend our cognitive infrastructure
• Establish methods to rapidly detect and mitigate attacks against our cognitive infrastructure
• Establish internal policies for training of the workforce to mitigate threats of manipulation

The Role of Higher Education:

• Develop methods to assess the role of higher education in defending our cognitive infrastructure
• Ensure advanced critical thinking skills are part of all accredited curricula
• Contribute to and support the Cognitive Infrastructure ISAC

The Role of The Citizen

• In a free society it is the job of the citizen to decide what their role is in the cognitive infrastructure. But there may be areas where laws or regulations should be changed to mitigate risks of malicious activity.
• Optimally, citizens should be equipped with mental models that will enable them to rapidly learn to spot specious or deceptive information.
• Citizens should be provided with means to report to businesses and government when they detect malicious attacks against our cognitive infrastructure.

 

Concluding Questions:

Today there is no more urgent priority than assuring the security, continuity, and availability of how we think.

• So what do you think?
• Do you think our cognitive infrastructure should be designated one of DHS’s Critical Infrastructures?

It would be great to get your views on these topics, while we still trust each other as credible sources.

Additional Resources:

OODA Guide To Decision Intelligence

The greatest determinant of your success will be the quality of your decisions. We examine frameworks for understanding and reducing risk while enabling opportunities. Topics include Black Swans, Gray Rhinos, Foresight, Strategy, Stratigames, Business Intelligence and Intelligent Enterprises. Leadership in the modern age is also a key topic in this domain. See: Decision Intelligence