The Cognitive Crucible

Rod Korba discusses Vygotsky's inner speech theory, focusing on how internal words differ from external speech in forming personal meanings. Inner speech serves as a tool for conceptual thinking and mediating public and private thoughts, shaping identity and cognitive functions.

Exploring China's media tactics, fragile partnerships, and online manipulation tactics in comparison to other nations. Navigating internet restrictions in China and AI vs human creativity in censorship challenges. Insights on measuring online influence and cognitive warfare tactics.

This podcast delves into Curtis Fox's insights on Hybrid Warfare, focusing on the Russian approach. The discussion covers Russia's historical expansion strategies, the West's identity crisis, and the use of narratives in hybrid warfare tactics. It also explores China and Iran's strategies, geographical influences on civilization growth, and critiques on civilizational development explanations.

Former US Air Force officer Julie Janson discusses the founding of the Air Force's Information Operations career field, the need for continuous learning in the information environment, the importance of cultural expertise in the military, signature management, collaboration in information operations, and unconventional book recommendations for military personnel.

Ben Kessler from Meltwater discusses their Owned, Earned, Organic (OEO) measurement models. He explores the transformation of data into valuable insights, challenges of deriving meaningful insights from vast amounts of data, and risks of mis and disinformation. They also discuss the origin of Meltwater, diverse data sources for information, the importance of evaluating ROI, and the importance of agility in government.

US Marine Corps Major Melissa Giannetto discusses her Master’s thesis on media literacy efforts in Finland, Sweden, and Norway. Topics covered include the importance of media literacy, implementation methods, media literacy training in Sweden, competition for attention, and the book 'Foolproof' on misinformation.

Tanna Krewson, a researcher in cognitive warfare and global conflict analysis, discusses the impact of cognitive warfare on society, the subconscious mind's role in decision-making, monetizing attention on YouTube, atmospheric influence in fast food restaurants, and book recommendations on cognitive warfare and misinformation.

Joseph Lee, a Jungian Analyst, discusses Carl Jung, collective consciousness, and archetypes. The podcast covers a comparison between Jung and Freud, Joseph Campbell's work on the hero's journey, the Marvel universe as a modern collection of stories, the power of rituals, and the emergence of archetypes. It also explores the application of archetypes in national security and marketing, archetypes in teams, contextual parameters, creating a new myth, and the impact of vivid imagery.

Author Brian Russell discusses cyberspace's role in maneuver warfare, the challenges of decision making and leadership, closing the cyber gap for US military forces, the importance of partnerships in national security, and effective organizations in the DevSecOps world.

The Cognitive Crucible is a forum that presents different perspectives and emerging thought leadership related to the information environment. The opinions expressed by guests are their own, and do not necessarily reflect the views of or endorsement by the Information Professionals Association. During this episode, John Davis recaps Four Operational Rules of the Road, which are intended to prevent miscalculation and unintended escalation. John synthesized these Rules based upon many years experience in military uniform and after many conversations with global leaders and academics. Briefly, they are: transparency, SOPs for oversight, sharing threat intelligence, and banning third party actors. We also revisit some of the topics from John’s first Cognitive Crucible appearance. Research Question: John Davis asserts that there's been a lot of recent reporting about China's onslaught of disinformation oriented toward Taiwan and in the run up to the January elections. Reporting indicates that there may be important lessons in how Taiwan has handled this onslaught, including public education efforts with support from international media literacy partnerships as well as more active countermeasures by mature communities of fact-checkers, government investments and law enforcement investigations. He believes it would be a great research project to examine the techniques and capabilities employed by Taiwan and analyze the effectiveness, or lack thereof, to assist the U.S. in preparation for the 2024 presidential elections as well as our overall national effort to combat the information warfare efforts aimed at the country by Russia, China, Iran, North Korea and all of their surrogates. Resources: Cognitive Crucible Podcast Episodes Mentioned #24 John Davis on Modern Warfare, Teamwork, and Commercial Cognitive Security #166 John Agnello on Information Advantage Army Doctrinal Publication 3-13 INFORMATION, Nov 2023 Cybersecurity First Principles: A Reboot of Strategy and Tactics by Rick Howard  Link to full show notes and resources Guest Bio: Retired U.S. Army Major General John Davis is the Vice President, Public Sector for Palo Alto Networks, where he is responsible for expanding cybersecurity initiatives and global policy for the international public sector and assisting governments around the world to prevent successful cyber breaches. Prior to joining Palo Alto Networks, John served as the Senior Military Advisor for Cyber to the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy and also served as the Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Cyber Policy.  Prior to this assignment, he served in multiple leadership positions in special operations, cyber, and information operations. John earned a Master of Strategic Studies from the U.S. Army War College, Master of Military Art and Science from U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, and Bachelor of Science from U.S. Military Academy at West Point. About: The Information Professionals Association (IPA) is a non-profit organization dedicated to exploring the role of information activities, such as influence and cognitive security, within the national security sector and helping to bridge the divide between operations and research. Its goal is to increase interdisciplinary collaboration between scholars and practitioners and policymakers with an interest in this domain. For more information, please contact us at communications@information-professionals.org. Or, connect directly with The Cognitive Crucible podcast host, John Bicknell, on LinkedIn. Disclosure: As an Amazon Associate, 1) IPA earns from qualifying purchases, 2) IPA gets commissions for purchases made through links in this post.