Andrei Ilnitsky said that it was the US and NATO military that set the task of moving from informational to cognitive-mental dominance as a determining factor in the final strategic victory over the enemy
MOSCOW, March 20. /tass/. US and NATO military experts are forming a "mental theater of military operations" with fundamentally new weapons of point and mass destruction of the enemy's consciousness. This was stated by the adviser to the head of the Russian Defense Ministry, Andrei Ilnitsky.
"The military specialists of the United States and NATO are forming a mental theater of military operations with fundamentally new weapons of point and mass destruction of the enemy's consciousness. The mental sphere is becoming the area of NATO operations - the most important operational domain," Ilnitsky said in an article for the Arsenal of the Fatherland magazine .
According to him, it is the US and NATO military that has set the task of moving from informational to cognitive-mental dominance as a determining factor in the final strategic victory over the enemy. "This is a war for minds and for consciousnesses, this is a mental war," he stressed.
Ilnitsky noted that the global centers of cognitive research, including Harvard and Princeton Universities, the Command for Civil Affairs and Psychological Operations of the US Army, the NATO Innovation Center, the Joint Center for Combat Operations in the field of Information Operations of the US Department of Defense and other structures are behind the development and implementation of these technologies.
Adviser Shoigu also said that "in order to "untie" the hands of these structures, the US leadership has adopted the concept of "permanent information and cyberactivity on the front lines" by transferring the fight to an enemy (for example, to Russia) "virtual territory."
The idea of mental superiority
Military expert, retired Colonel Viktor Litovkin believes that the idea of comprehensive superiority has become a religion for the United States. "The idea of comprehensive superiority, not only racial or civilizational, but also military and economic superiority, has become a religion for Western countries, primarily for the United States. From the standpoint of this religious sense of self, they do not want to perceive reasonable things. This makes it difficult, of course, to achieve peace, tranquility, and balance in international affairs. They seek to use this superiority to suppress other peoples, other countries, so that they lose their sovereignty and independence," Litovkin told TASS.
According to him, the countries that joined NATO are forced to act to the detriment of their economies. The expert cited Ukraine as an example. "NATO forced the Ukrainian army to act according to NATO instructions, instructions. And NATO generals led Ukraine during the so-called counteroffensive, which ended disastrously for Ukraine. Everything happens from here, including all the failures of the same Europeans, Ukraine, who act contrary to their national interests. The United States and NATO imposed on them their own mental image of how the world should develop," he added.
Psychological, informational and psychological pressure, pressure with the help of culture can be attributed to new types of weapons in mental warfare, this is the same Hollywood, the substitution of traditional values with Western ones, Litovkin noted. "All this has a complex effect on the psyche of people, on the leadership of certain countries," the expert concluded.
As TASS Ilnitsky reported on November 30, 2023, commenting on a previous article in the Arsenal of the Fatherland magazine about mental warfare, the integrity of the value base of the Russian people helped to reflect the blitzkrieg of mental warfare that the West was trying to carry out in 2022. Realizing the futility of these attempts, the enemy is trying to divide society and influence the elites. According to him, the failure of such a "blitzkrieg" is indicated by sociological measurements of support for his own, so now the enemy is going to segment society, destroying the value base that allowed him to stand.
