Through its publications, INSS provides rigorous, forward‑looking research and analysis on critical national security issues that support the joint warfighter and inform Department of War decision‑makers.
Aug. 24, 2026
Cognitive Warfare and the Brain-as-Battlespace: Neuroscience, Artificial Intelligence, and the Emerging Domain of Neurostrategic Competition
Introduction: The Human Brain as BattlespaceEvery competitive or conflictive human activity wields some form of power in attempt to affect behavior. Diplomacy seeks to influence it through politics; economic sanctions seek to modify it through the distribution and access of goods; military operations seek to compel it through the threat or use of
Aug. 18, 2026
Decision Advantage in Cognitive Warfare, Part 2
A central challenge of cognitive warfare is governing the relationship between institutional cognition and an operational environment in which informational, behavioral, and social dynamics evolve continuously and often independently of military decision timelines. To meet this challenge, we propose that future command architectures should emphasize and integrate mechanisms for the adaptive synchronization of human judgment, AI, and the cognitive ecosystem being engaged.
AI Versus AI: Human Engagement Via SYNTHComm in AI Warfare
In the AAIRR journal, INSS experts Dr. Elise G. Annett and Dr. James Giordano propose and define a dialectical command framework that represents a synthesis of human cognition and artificial intelligence (SYNTHComm), which is designed to realign the ethics of force projection in an era of increasingly autonomous systems.
The Agentic Olympus: The “Gods” of AI in Irregular Cognitive Warfare
INSS experts Dr. Elise G. Annett and Dr. James Giordano and Irregular Warfare Center researcher Dr. John A. Pennell recently published an article about “Agentic Olympus,” which establishes a strategic theory of AI-enabled command. It conceptualizes military AI as an evolving ecology of specialized intelligent agents whose relationships determine the quality, resilience, and adaptability of operational decision-making.
July 20, 2026
Cognitive Engagement as a Strategic Imperative of Irregular Warfare
Irregular warfare is one of the most enduring modalities of human conflict; persisting across epochs because it exploits asymmetries inherent in human cognition, sociopolitical organization, and technical capability.
June 20, 2026
The emerging armamentarium of cognitive warfare with Dr. James Giordano (Video)
In this lecture for the Cognitive Security Institute, Dr. Giordano discusses the weaponization of neuroscience to engage the brain as the new battle-space, and the ethical issues that arise in and from these dual use developments.
June 9, 2026
Autonomous Narrative Warfare: Engaging Agentic AI Within the Cognitive Battlespace
Cognition is becoming a focal domain of strategic competition of the twenty-first century battlespace.
June 8, 2026
Cognitive Warfare at the Crossroads: Defining and Developing Capabilities
To date, there continues to be some discussion, including essays that have appeared in this forum, as to whether and to what extent cognitive warfare represents anything other than psychological operations (PSYOPS) with more sophisticated tools and methods, or if it actually is a unique and evolving domain of combat.
May 5, 2026
Substrate Vulnerability: Neural Factors in Cognitive Security | James Giordano
A realist approach to cognitive security must appreciate the dynamic interaction of biological, psychological and socioenvironmental factors as both (1) constituent to human function and (2) opportune targets of influence, and effect.
April 9, 2026
Cognitive Warfare and the Changing Character of Engagement: A Neurostrategic Perspective
The contemporary battlespace is undergoing a profound transformation in its fundamental logic.