By Michael Posey
“We do not rise to the level of our expectations; we fall to the level of our training.”
— commonly attributed to the ancient Greek poet Archilochus
Cognitive warfare is not another topic to add to already crowded syllabi in professional military education (PME). Teaching this complex subject requires active learning design, well-constructed practice fields, and a sustained community of practice. Cognitive warfare is a persistent contest in which adversaries seek to shape how people and institutions perceive, decide, and act. Joint doctrine now recognizes information as a joint function that enables decision advantage across domains, and the Joint Concept for Information Advantage emphasizes shaping understanding and decision-making in competition. NATO similarly frames cognitive warfare as a contest where the brain is both weapon and target.
In a competition defined by speed, scale, and sustained cognitive pressure, the force that learns faster will decide faster and prevail. U.S. competitors such as Russia and China rapidly and extensively iterate in the cognitive space. To increase our resilience and agility in cognitive warfare, the joint force should leverage our institutional learning advantage as a competitive edge.
In and out of uniform, our service members participate in the information environment, and we should educate them on the pernicious methods our competitors employ in their seas of misinformation. Therefore, cognitive resilience constitutes part of warfighter readiness and cannot be treated as a communications afterthought. To meet this challenge, we need a federated but coherent academic strategy that treats cognitive warfare as a discipline to be practiced, not merely a subject to be taught.
This article outlines how information professionals can better educate the joint force with adult learning design, practice fields, communities of practice, and connective professional forums that allow the community to learn faster than the threat evolves.
Decision advantage is built through education, where warfighters practice thinking and deciding under pressure before the stakes are real.
From Content to Learning Design
Usually, gaps in our troops’ readiness do not stem from a lack of awareness of the subject matter. Instead, these gaps stem from a learning design that does not equip learners to handle unknown complexities but instead trains for known procedures. Cognitive warfare problems are ill-structured, ambiguous, and time-pressured. They do not yield to checklists or passive instruction. Slide decks and awareness modules can increase familiarity, but they do not build the judgment required to operate under cognitive pressure. Cognitive warfare cannot be addressed solely through mandatory training. Instead, it must be a foundational part of our service members’ education. Adult education research reminds us that experienced professionals learn best when education is relevant, experiential, and reflective. This aligns with the foundational work of American philosopher John Dewey on experiential education. Experienced learners must engage with problems that matter, actively make decisions, and reflect on the consequences. That reflection is where judgment develops.
At senior PME institutions, like the Army War College, we use design thinking to operationalize these principles. While not a panacea, it is a disciplined approach for framing ill-structured problems, surfacing assumptions, thinking systematically, and managing trade-offs. In a cognitive contest, problem framing often matters more than the solution itself.
Practice Fields: Where Judgment Is Built
Learning design becomes real in practice fields. Practice fields are deliberately constructed, low-stakes environments where students engage in activities they will face later, using real doctrine in controlled scenarios. Wargames, planning exercises, and tabletop exercises are classic examples in the military. These are action-based learning environments in the Deweyan sense: learning through experience combined with reflection.
In a China Integrated Course wargame from the last academic year, my Army War College students discovered that contested logistics proved essential to success. That realization only emerged through their deliberate action and reflection, not briefing slides. While I could tell them the game will prompt them to consider logistics, my students would not understand it as well as they did through the wargame experience. The Army War College continues to innovate its educational wargames for students to learn joint warfighting and improve their decision-making.
Practice fields offer students an opportunity to develop their understanding of how to address complexity in a relatively low-stakes PME environment. Students build understanding by framing problems, analyzing the mission with their peers, testing ideas, and adapting to consequences. Experiential learning cycles that iterate, like the turns in a war game, enable students to reflect more deeply on their experiences and, in turn, shape improved future decision-making.
One design principle is especially important with practice fields: leave problems ill-structured. When dilemmas are not neatly defined, students must make assumptions, justify tradeoffs, and confront second- and third-order effects. Students then practice critical and systems thinking, which are essential to being agile and resilient in cognitive warfare.
The Naval War College during the interwar period offers a durable model. Through repeated wargaming, officers stress-tested assumptions about distance, logistics, command and control, and decision-making under uncertainty. Fleet Admiral Chester Nimitz later reflected that little in the Pacific War surprised him because the Navy had effectively re-fought the war repeatedly in Newport. Practice fields, done seriously, are how professionals build judgment before the stakes are real.
Communities of Practice: Where Learning Endures
Practice fields are necessary but not sufficient. Learning must persist beyond the classroom. It deepens and endures when learners transition into communities of practice where practitioners apply shared methods to real problems over time.
In classroom environments, we can see why this matters. When students are under time constraints during group exercises and lack proper guidance, teams may rush to reach consensus. That behavior mirrors what can happen in operational planning environments. Allowing students to make those mistakes and then reflect on how an adversary could exploit their decisions builds judgment that carries into real-world practice.
This dynamic is not confined to classrooms. In May of 2022, the Naval War College facilitated a contested logistics wargame for the Deputy Chief of Naval Operations for Readiness and Logistics (OPNAV N4) with 40 organizations across the DOD and international partners. OPNAV N4 chose to immediately implement the lessons learned across the Fleet for iterative adaptation. The interwar Navy provides another example. Learning did not remain in the classroom. War Plan Orange was the result of decades of professional dialogue in the Naval War College and the Fleet, a successful community of practice at work.
For professional military education, sequencing matters. Practice fields should come first to build shared language, trust, and analytic habits. Real-world engagements should follow once learners are prepared to contribute without sacrificing reflection or intellectual risk-taking. Like any complex discipline, cognitive warfare learning can occur in a course, but readiness and best practice must be sustained in a community.
A Federated Academic Strategy for Our Community of Practice
A coherent cross-institutional strategy should be federated. It should leverage the strengths of service schools, war colleges, civilian universities, and research centers while aligning on outcomes and methods. Three pillars for a successful community of practice are essential:
First, institutions should teach in line with their missions (for example, we at the Army War College will focus on Strategic Landpower) while aligning their practices with how adults learn. This means aligning methods, not syllabi, so that both tactical schools and senior war colleges emphasize active learning and experiential education. The complexity of cognitive warfare demands that warfighters make better decisions with imperfect information rather than simply following a checklist.
Second, the joint force must invest in people and practice-field infrastructure. Resourcing should prioritize faculty development and action-based tools such as standing wargame labs, shared data environments, and assessment frameworks. Cognitive warfare should be incorporated meaningfully into wargames. The Applied Research Laboratory for Intelligence and Security (ARLIS) Information Competition Simulator (ICS) is an example of the robust wargaming simulations our warfighters must employ to build stronger cognitive warfare capacity. Robust wargaming tools like the ICS allow commanders and their staffs to think through military deception, population messaging, and how human-machine teaming may help them make sense of the information environment. Cognitive warfare demands that practitioners familiarize themselves with the increasing pace of warfare. Human–machine teaming is particularly salient, as it accelerates decision tempo while introducing the risk of automation bias.
Third, information professionals must recognize education as a gateway, not a destination. Formal education should be the entry point into an ongoing community of practice supported by alumni networks, recurring problem sets, and shared collaboration environments.
Connective Tissue: Professional Forums
A federated system requires connective tissue. Professional forums such as the Information Professionals Association provide venues such as the Cognitive Crucible, where educators, operators, and researchers can share best practices, compare learning designs, and evaluate outcomes. These venues do not replace formal education. They link practice fields across institutions into a broader community of practice and ensure the profession learns faster than the threat evolves. This “connective tissue” allows lessons from practice fields at one institution to inform learning and operations across the entire profession.
A Call to Action for the IPA: Share What Works
If we want a profession that learns continuously, we must share what works and what does not. Educators, operators, and researchers should contribute practical insights on:
- designing practice fields that build judgment under ambiguity
- using design thinking to frame ill-structured problems
- assessing cognitive effects beyond surface metrics
- building human–machine trust
- sequencing practice fields to real-world engagements
- sustaining communities of practice across institutions
If we can share, test, and iterate these methods together, we will build a profession that learns faster than the threat evolves. We must move fast; our competitors will not wait for us to perfect our curricula. The goal is not simply better courses, but a profession that learns continuously in a contested cognitive environment.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the U.S. Army War College, the U.S. Navy, or the Department of War.
Michael Posey is an active-duty Naval Flight Officer with a subspecialty in Information Systems and Operations. He holds business degrees from Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Florida. He is a doctoral candidate in education at Pennsylvania State University and currently serves as an Assistant Professor at the U.S. Army War College.