The Cognitive Crucible

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, Bill Bray discusses his recent article: The Navy Information Warfare Community's Road to Serfdom. Bill offers a constructive critique of the United States Navy's information warfare community manpower management policies. He asserts that information warfare officers are crowded out of senior leadership positions which, in turn, is having adverse effects on morale within the community.

Research Question: Bill suggests students and the information professionals community in general figure out a way to measure the effectiveness of influence campaigns.

Resources:

• Cognitive Crucible Podcast Episodes Mentioned
  • #24 John Davis on Modern Warfare, Teamwork, and Commercial Cognitive Security
• The Navy Information Warfare Community's Road to Serfdom
• Friedrich Hayek
• The Myth of Artificial Intelligence: Why Computers Can't Think the Way We Do by Erik J. Larson

Link to full show notes and resources

https://information-professionals.org/episode/cognitive-crucible-episode-120

Guest Bio:

From Natick, Massachusetts, Captain Bray graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1988. He served as a surface warfare officer in San Diego, California, until 1992 before transitioning to naval intelligence. In naval intelligence, he served in a variety of operational and joint intelligence billets in both the Pacific and Europe and completed two Middle East deployments and one East Africa deployment. From 2010 to 2012 he commanded the Nimitz Operational Intelligence Center at the Office of Naval Intelligence in Suitland, Maryland, and from 2012 to 2014 he served as the Naval Forces Europe/Naval Forces Africa/Sixth Fleet Director for Intelligence in Naples, Italy. In 2014–2015 he was a CNO Strategic Studies Fellow in Newport, Rhode Island.

Following retirement in 2016, Captain Bray was a managing director at Ankura Consulting before being hired in August 2018 as deputy editor-in-chief of Proceedings magazine at the U.S. Naval Institute in Annapolis, Maryland.

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 [email protected].

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.

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, Katie Carman discusses the most recent installment in RAND's Truth Decay project: Individual Differences in Resistance to Truth Decay: Exploring the Role of Reasoning and Cognitive Biases. We discuss cognitive biases and how they affect decision making. The most consistent finding from her co-authored report was that greater numerical and scientific reasoning and lower magical reasoning were associated with greater resistance to Truth Decay.

Research Question: Creative, young minds should explore how to solve the Truth Decay problem? How can we experiment with new ideas in order to use information better? Can we come up with a new way of presenting information that will make it easier for people to identify facts?

Resources:

• Cognitive Crucible Podcast Episodes Mentioned
  • #76 Yuval Levin on the Constitution & Institutions
  • #107 Vanessa Otero on News Ecosystem Health
• Katherine Carman's Bio
• RAND's Truth Decay Initiative
• Recent Report: Individual Differences in Resistance to Truth Decay: Exploring the Role of Reasoning and Cognitive Biases by Luke J. Matthews, Andrew M. Parker, Katherine Grace Carman, Rose Kerber, Jennifer Kavanagh
• Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman
• Meme Wars: The Untold Story of the Online Battles Upending Democracy in America by Joan Donovan, Emily Dreyfuss, Brian Friedberg

Link to full show notes and resources

https://information-professionals.org/episode/cognitive-crucible-episode-119

Guest Bio:

Katherine Carman is a senior economist at the RAND Corporation, director of RAND's Center for Financial and Economic Decision Making, and a professor at the Pardee RAND Graduate School. Her research focuses on behavioral economics, health economics, and public economics. Carman is particularly interested in how individuals' beliefs, perceptions, and decision making processes affect their choices. Currently she is studying health behaviors, health insurance decisions, and retirement decisions. She has a number of projects studying the impacts of COVID-19. She is also interested in the effects of peer behavior and characteristics on individual choices.

Previously, Carman was an assistant professor at Tilburg University and affiliated with CentER and Netspar. She was a Robert Wood Johnson Scholar in health policy research at Harvard University. She received a Ph.D. in economics from Stanford University.

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 [email protected].

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.

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, Joe Kirschbaum discusses the Government Accountability Office's (GAO) September 2022 report entitled: Information Environment: Opportunities and Threats to DOD's National Security Mission. This report describes DOD's use and protection of the information environment and describes DOD actions taken and planned to use and protect the information environment. Joe Kirschbaum describes several themes which characterize DOD's progress related to information-related capabilities including what he calls the "strategy implementation mismatch."

Research Questions:

• What's the right whole of government structure or model that's appropriate for managing this problem? What's the right interagency approach?
• How might the information environment be used in a combined arms construct?

Resources:

• Cognitive Crucible Podcast Episodes Mentioned
  • #111 Victoria Coleman on Science, Technology, and Innovation
• United States Government Accountability Office
• Dr. Joe Kirschbaum's GAO bio
• Information Environment: Opportunities and Threats to DOD's National Security Mission (Sep 2022)
• Information Environment: DOD Operations Need Enhanced Leadership and Integration of Capabilities (Apr 2021)
• Information Operations: DOD Should Improve Leadership and Integration Efforts (Aug 2019)(Restricted))
• Joint Information Environment: DOD Needs to Strengthen Governance and Management (Oct 2016)
• YouTube: GAO National Security Threats in the Information Age - Director Summary
• YouTube: GAO National Security Threats in the Information Age - Industrial Age and Information Age
• YouTube: GAO National Security Threats in the Information Age - F-35 Example
• Information Technology and Military Power by Jon R. Lindsay

Link to full show notes and resources

https://information-professionals.org/episode/cognitive-crucible-episode-118

Guest Bio:

Dr. Joseph Kirschbaum is a Director in GAO's Defense Capabilities and Management team. He leads GAO's work on the Department of Defense's ability to respond to unconventional threats. As part of his portfolio, he oversees evaluations on the Department of Defense's preparations for homeland defense; plans to respond to emerging threats and irregular warfare; protection of critical infrastructure; and development and management of cyber, nuclear, and intelligence capabilities.

Over his 20-plus-year career with GAO, Dr. Kirschbaum conducted and led audits throughout the range of defense and national security programs, focusing mostly on the Defense Department.

Dr. Kirschbaum comes from a Navy family and served briefly on active duty in the U.S. Navy's nuclear propulsion program. He earned a bachelor's degree in history and political science and a master's degree in national security studies, both from California State University, San Bernardino, and a doctoral degree in military history from George Washington University.

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 [email protected].

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.

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, Sam Wooley of the University of Texas School of Journalism discusses journalism, propaganda, and ethics. Our conversations unpacks the definition of propaganda and how today's technology fuels propaganda and influence.

Research Question: Encrypted messaging apps (like WhatApp, Signal, Discord, etc) are becoming more popular, and incubation of disinformation campaigns happens in those spaces. How does disinformation and propaganda spread in encrypted spaces? How will we study propaganda in transport-layer encrypted spaces?

Resources:

• Cognitive Crucible Podcast Episodes Mentioned
  • #112 Jake Sotiriadis on the Value Proposition of Future Studies
  • #107 Vanessa Otero on News Ecosystem Health
  • #14 BDJ on Threatcasting
  • #116 Matt Jackson on Social Learning and Game Theory
• Sam Wooley's Bio
• Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media by Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky
• Yellow Journalism
• Bots by Nick Monaco, Samuel Woolley
• Manufacturing Consensus: Understanding Propaganda in the Era of Automation and Anonymity by Sam Woolley
• Center for Media Engagement at University of Texas

Link to full show notes and resources

https://information-professionals.org/episode/cognitive-crucible-episode-117

Guest Bio:

Samuel C. Woolley is an assistant professor in the School of Journalism and an assistant professor, by courtesy, in the School of Information--both at the University of Texas at Austin. He is also the project director for propaganda research at the Center for Media Engagement (CME) at UT.

Woolley is currently a research associate at the Project for Democracy and the Internet at Stanford University. He has held past research affiliations at the Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford and the Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society (CITRIS) at the University of California at Berkeley.

Woolley's research is focused on how emergent technologies are used in and around global political communication. His work on computational propaganda—the use of social media in attempts to manipulate public opinion—has revealed the ways in which a wide variety of political groups in the United States and abroad have leveraged tools such as bots and trending algorithms and tactics of disinformation and trolling in efforts to control information flows online. His research on digital politics, automation/AI, social media, and political polarization is currently supported by grants from by Omidyar Network (ON), the Miami Foundation, and the Knight Foundation. His past research has been funded by the Ford Foundation, the Hewlett Foundation, the Open Society Foundations, the New Venture Fund for Communications, and others.

His latest book, The Reality Game: How the Next Wave of Technology Will Break the Truth, was released in January 2020 by PublicAffairs (US) and Octopus/Endeavour (UK). It explores the ways in which emergent technologies--from deep fakes to virtual reality--are already being leveraged to manipulate public opinion, and how they are likely to be used in the future. He proposes strategic responses to these threats with the ultimate goal of empowering activists and pushing technology builders to design for democracy and human rights.

He is currently working on two other books. Manufacturing Consensus (Yale University Press) explores the ways in which social media, and automated tools such as bots, have become global mechanisms for creating illusions of political support or popularity. He discusses the power of these tools for amplification and suppression of particular modes of digital communication, building on Herman and Chomsky's (1988) integral work on propaganda. His other book, co-authored with Nicholas Monaco, is titled Bots (Polity) and is a primer on the ways these automated tools have become integral to the flow of all manner of information online.

Woolley is the co-editor, with Philip N. Howard (Oxford) of Computational Propaganda: Political Parties, Politicians, and Political Manipulation on Social Media, released in 2018 by the Oxford Studies in Digital Politics series at Oxford University Press. This volume of country specific case studies explores the rise of social media--and tools like algorithms and automation--as mechanisms for political manipulation around the world. He has published several peer-reviewed articles, book chapters, and white papers on emergent technology, the Internet and public life in publications such as the Journal of Information Technology and Politics, the International Journal of Communication, A Networked Self: Platforms, Stories, Connections, The Political Economy of Robots: Prospects for Prosperity and Peace in an Automated 21st Century, The Handbook of Media, Conflict and Security, and Can Public Diplomacy Survive the Internet? Bots, Echo Chambers and Disinformation.

Woolley is the founding director of the Digital Intelligence Lab, a research and policy oriented project at the Institute for the Future—a 50-year-old think-tank located in Palo Alto, CA. Before this he served as the director of research at the National Science Foundation and European Research Council supported Computational Propaganda Project at the Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford. He is a former resident fellow at the German Marshall Fund's Digital Innovation Democracy Initiative and a former Belfer Fellow at the Anti-Defamation League's Center for Science and technology. He is a former research fellow at Jigsaw, Google's think-tank and technology incubator, at the Center Tech Policy Lab at the University of Washington's Schools of Law and Information, and at the Center for Media, Data and Society at Central European University.

His public work on computational propaganda and social media bots has appeared in venues including Wired, the Guardian,TechCrunch, Motherboard, Slate, and The Atlantic. For his research, Woolley has been featured in publications such as the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Guardian and on PBS' Frontline, BBC's News at Ten, and ABC's Today. His work on computational propaganda and bots has been presented to members of the U.S. Congress, the U.K. Parliament, NATO, and others. His Ph.D. is in Communication from the University of Washington. His website is samwoolley.org and he tweets from @samuelwoolley.

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 [email protected].

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.

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, Prof Matt Jackson of Stanford University discusses social learning, game theory, and an optimization methodology for minimizing the spread of disinformation.

Research Question:

• There's a difference between entertainment and becoming informed. How do we produce systems which are both entertaining & informing?

Resources:

• Matt Jackson's Stanford Web Page
• Learning through the grapevine and the impact of the breadth and depth of social networks by Matthew O. Jackson, Suraj Malladi, and David McAdams
• The Human Network by Matthew Jackson
• Measuring Group Differences in High-Dimensional Choices: Method and Application to Congressional Speech by Matthew Gentzkow, Jesse M. Shapiro, and Matt Taddy
• The Secret of Our Success: How Culture Is Driving Human Evolution, Domesticating Our Species, and Making Us Smarter by Joseph Henrich

Link to full show notes and resources

https://information-professionals.org/episode/cognitive-crucible-episode-116

Guest Bio:

Matthew O. Jackson is the William D. Eberle Professor of Economics at Stanford University and an external faculty member of the Santa Fe Institute. He was at Northwestern University and Caltech before joining Stanford, and received his BA from Princeton University in 1984 and PhD from Stanford in 1988. Jackson's research interests include game theory, microeconomic theory, and the study of social and economic networks, on which he has published many articles and the books `The Human Network' and `Social and Economic Networks'. He also teaches an online course on networks and co-teaches two others on game theory. Jackson is a Member of the National Academy of Sciences, a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a Fellow of the Econometric Society, a Game Theory Society Fellow, and an Economic Theory Fellow, and his other honors include a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Social Choice and Welfare Prize, the von Neumann Award from Rajk Laszlo College, an honorary doctorate from Aix-Marseille University, the Jean-Jacques Laffont Prize from the Toulouse School of Economics, the B.E.Press Arrow Prize for Senior Economists, the BBVA Frontiers of Knowledge Award in Economics, Finance, and Management, and teaching awards. He has served on the editorial boards of Econometrica, Games and Economic Behavior, PNAS, the Review of Economic Design, and as the President of the Game Theory Society.

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 [email protected].

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.

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, Russ Burgos discusses the importance of defining terms–like information itself. He offers a way of thinking about information in supply/demand and behavioral economics terminology. Russ recaps his "Seven A's of Information Success" and then projects these concepts into global influence efficacy.

Research Questions: Russ offers several questions worthy of additional research:

• Is information a domain, an environment, or a thing? What do we mean by information?
• Can information effects be isolated? Ad agents frequently define success with "ad recall;" yet, ad recall is an imperfect measure. For example, it is very possible to have great ad recall without behavioral change.
• Investigate and differentiate market penetration and market effect?
• Where is persuasion theory today?
• How does information processing work inside a person's heads and how is it affected by culture or education?

Resources:

• Cognitive Crucible Podcast Episodes Mentioned
  • #49 Matt Armstrong on the Smith-Mundt Act
• The Sheikh's Batmobile: In Pursuit of American Pop Culture in the Muslim World by Richard Poplak
• Dr. Russell Burgos bio
• Narrative Economics: How Stories Go Viral and Drive Major Economic Events by Robert J. Shiller
• Pushing Cool: Big Tobacco, Racial Marketing, and the Untold Story of the Menthol Cigarette by Keith Wailoo
• Russ's Information Doctrine Tweet
• Russ' Seven A's of Information Success:
  • Acquisition
  • Attendance
  • Assessment
  • Acceptance
  • Approval
  • Application
  • Adaptation
• Prince Spaghetti Boston Anthony Commercial (YouTube)
• Hastorf, A. H., & Cantril, H. (1954). They saw a game; a case study. The Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 49(1), 129–134.
• Howard Gardner, Changing Minds: The Art and Science of Changing Our Own and Other People's Minds
• Philip Corr and Anke Plagnol, Behavioral Economics: The Basics
• Todd Rose, Collective Illusions: Conformity, Complicity, and the Science of Why We Make Bad Decisions

Link to full show notes and resources

https://information-professionals.org/episode/cognitive-crucible-episode-115

Guest Bio:

Russell Burgos is an Associate Professor in the Joint Special Operations Master of Arts program at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. He joined NDU after more than 12 years as a professor at UCLA, the University of Southern California, Claremont McKenna College, and Pepperdine University.

In addition to extensive experience teaching core courses in American and international politics, globalization, Great Power competition, and political theory, Dr. Burgos has designed and taught seminar courses on U.S. national security, homeland security, globalization and international security, American foreign relations, the economics of globalization, the Iraq War, Middle East politics, and US foreign and military policy in the Persian Gulf. At UCLA, Dr. Burgos was also employed as a research assistant to the late political scientist James Q. Wilson and to former UCLA Chancellor Al Carnesale, for whom he conducted research on arms control and weapons and technology proliferation.

In addition to his classroom experience, Dr. Burgos directed a Department of Defense-funded Track II military diplomacy program for senior Middle East military and government agency officials, designing and executing two multi-day conferences each year to encourage dialog, share perspectives on current and emerging security challenges, and support U.S. confidence-building measures. With access to a wide network of think-tank subject matter experts and senior active duty and retired officers from the US and NATO allies, the program included presentations, small-group discussions, and tabletop exercises focusing on issues of regional concern, including the military balance, emerging technology and warfare, the effects of political changes on regional stability and security, border control, lawfare, military operations in urban terrain, anti-piracy and counter-terrorism operations, and pandemic disease response.

Dr. Burgos has written articles and book chapters on national security policy, US Middle East policy, strategy and policy in the Persian Gulf, the effects of Special Operations Forces on regional and global stability, the teaching of international politics, and academic techniques and best practices for Professional Military Education students.

He is a former Signal and Psychological Operations officer, an active wargamer, presents frequently at professional conferences, has appeared on radio, television, and podcasts and before community and service organizations in the U.S. and abroad to offer expert commentary on U.S. national security policy and strategy, and has served as a military technology and military history consultant for television and film productions.

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 [email protected].

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.

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, Brazilian Army Capt Rubens Portugal discusses governmental structure and various information operations policies including operational integration and talent management.

Research Question: How dangerous to a country like Brazil or any country for that matter is it to build an information warfare and political warfare capability? For some countries, this is very dangerous. What kind of informational structure is most ideal for countries where the state (permanent, non-political) and government (temporary politics) are not separate in practice?

Resources:

• Anatomia da Propaganda podcast
• Academia Militar das Agulhas Negras
• The War in Informational Era
• Demons: A Novel in Three Parts by Fyodor Dostoevsky
• Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game by Michael Lewis
• Psychological Warfare By Paul Linebarger

Link to full show notes and resources

https://information-professionals.org/episode/cognitive-crucible-episode-114

Guest Bio:

After receiving a Bachelors of Military Science, in the Military Academy (Academia Militar das Agulhas Negras), Captain Rubens Portugal was commissioned an Aspirant Officer in November 2013. Upon completion of initial training, he reported to 6th Signal Battalion, 6th Army Division. His assignments included Radio Platoon Commander and Command Center Officer.

As a signal officer, in 2014, he worked in the Brazilian World Cup Regional Security Operation, as a Command and Control officer

In 2016, as a lieutenant, he graduated in the Brazilian Army Psychological Operations Course and reported to the Brazilian Battalion (MINUSTAH, UN Peacekeeping Mission) for training and deployment.

In 2017, he was a PsyOp Officer in the PsyOp Detachment, Brazilian Battalion, in UN Peacekeeping Mission in Haiti - Mission des Nations Unies pour la Stabilization en Haïti (MINUSTAH).

After MINUSTAH, in 2018, Captain Rubens Portugal worked in the PsyOp Company, 1st PsyOps Battalion, on missions all over the Brazilian territory, specially in border operations and Rio de Janeiro Federal Intervention.

In 2019 he was selected to be instructor in the PsyOp course, and remained there for 3 years.

In 2022, he current function is Operation Center Officer, in the 1st PsyOp Battalion, Special Operations Command.

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 [email protected].

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.

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, Jeff Engstrom discusses in detail how the Chinese People's Liberation Army seeks to wage modern warfare. China favors a system of systems approach to warfare. They recognize that war is no longer a contest between particular units, arms, services, or even specific weapons platforms of competing adversaries, but rather a contest among numerous adversarial operational systems. Systems confrontation is waged not only in the traditional physical domains of land, sea, and air, but also in outer space, nonphysical cyberspace, electromagnetic, and even psychological domains.

Research Question: Jeff believes that students should help assess the lessons which the PLA is learning from Ukraine and elsewhere, and how these lessons are shaping China's understanding of systems and systems warfare.

Resources:

• Cognitive Crucible Podcast Episodes Mentioned
• • #79 Mulvaney on China In Their Own Words
• Jeffrey Engstrom bio
• RAND Report: Systems Confrontation and System Destruction Warfare: How the Chinese People's Liberation Army Seeks to Wage Modern Warfare
• Col John A. Warden III
• Warden's Five Rings
• PRC Defense White Papers
• • 2015: China's Military Strategy
  • 2019: China's National Defense in the New Era
• China Aerospace Studies Institute
• • Science of Strategy (2020 ed.)
  • Science of Strategy (2013 ed.)
  • Science of Campaigns (2006 ed.)

• IPA Seeks Authors and Cognitive Security Thought Leaders

Link to full show notes and resources

https://information-professionals.org/episode/cognitive-crucible-episode-113

Guest Bio:

Jeffrey Engstrom is a senior political scientist at the RAND Corporation. His research focuses on Asia-Pacific security and foreign policy issues; China's warfighting concepts and capabilities; coercion theory and use of coercive military force; and military intervention and security cooperation.

Before joining RAND, Engstrom was a defense policy analyst at Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) in McLean, Virginia, where, in addition to researching East Asian military capabilities, he also developed expertise in war gaming. Prior to his work at SAIC, Engstrom served as a Peace Corps Volunteer.

Engstrom received his B.A. in political science and international studies from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, a M.P.P. from the University of Chicago, and a Ph.D. in public policy from George Mason University.

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 [email protected].

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.

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, Jake Sotiriadis discusses how future studies can identify weak signals and emerging trends in order to develop anticipatory thinking which leads to better decisions.

Research Question: Jake believes that we need to spend more time learning about and learning from the robust future studies literature and different methodological approaches like: back casting, causal layered analysis, traditional scenario development, the futures wheel, plus others. He encourages students to first master a narrow area of expertise and then question the status quo. Ask the question: Where are there opportunities? How do we capture emergent phenomena? How do we anticipate?

Resources:

• Related or Mentioned Cognitive Crucible Podcast Episodes
• • #85 Josh Kerbel on Complexity and Anticipatory Intelligence
  • #14 BDJ on Threatcasting
• LtCol Jake Sotiriadis bio
• Social, Technological, Economical, Environmental and Political STEEP Future Framework
• Greece Futures Report
• The History of the Peloponnesian War by Thucydides
• Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman
• The Art of the Long View: Planning for the Future in an Uncertain World by Peter Schwartz
• Thinking in Time: The Uses of History for Decision-Makers by Richard E. Neustadt
• IPA Seeks Authors and Cognitive Security Thought Leaders

Link to full show notes and resources

https://information-professionals.org/episode/cognitive-crucible-episode-112

Guest Bio:

Dr. Jake Sotiriadis is a global futurist and expert in geopolitical risk intelligence. He is Director of The Center for Futures Intelligence at National Intelligence University (NIU), where he also serves on the research faculty. Dr. Sotiriadis previously served as the US Air Force's senior futurist at the Pentagon in Washington and founded the service's Strategic Foresight and Futures Team. At NIU, his research assists senior leaders in the intelligence and national security communities develop anticipatory thinking and strategic planning. He has served nearly two decades as an Air Force intelligence officer and holds a Ph.D. in political science and geopolitical futures from the University of Hawaii at Manoa. He also serves as an advisor to the State Department and teaches courses at the Foreign Service Institute. His forthcoming book, "The Invisible Regime: How Ideology Will Shape 21st Century Geopolitical Competition" will be published in 2023 by The National Intelligence Press.

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 [email protected].

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.

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, Dr. Victoria Coleman discusses her priorities, as the Chief Scientist for the the United States Air Force. Dr. Coleman cites that China is especially good at military-civilian fusion, and the United States needs improvement in that area. She also asserts that commercial market feedback mechanisms help explain why the government tends to lag commercial innovation. The Air Force's enterprise-wide Agile Combat Employment (ACE) concept was created recently to speed capability delivery. Dr. Coleman recently helped unveil a new competitive initiative which will create a University Affiliated Research Center at one of the United States Historically Black Colleges and Universities.

Resources:

• Dr. Victoria Coleman Bio
• Agile Combat Employment (ACE)
• Red Queen Hypothesis
• Romance of the Three Kingdoms by Luo Guanzhong and C. H. Brewitt-Taylor
• Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations by Clay Shirky

Research Question: In a democracy, there is tension between protecting individual freedoms while simultaneously ensuring that collective freedoms are not impacted. Digital human rights must be studied, understood, and co-evolved as containing both technology and policy components in order to protect group and individual outcomes. Promulgating digital human rights globally is a problem worthy of study.

Link to full show notes and resources

https://information-professionals.org/episode/cognitive-crucible-episode-111

Guest Bio:

Dr. Victoria Coleman is the Chief Scientist of the United States Air Force, Arlington, Virginia. She serves as the Chief Scientific Adviser to the Secretary of the Air Force, Air Force Chief of Staff, and Chief of Space Operations. She provides assessments on a wide range of scientific and technical issues affecting the department's mission. In this role, she identifies and analyzes technical issues, bringing them to the attention of department leaders. She interacts with other principals, operational commanders, combatant commands, acquisition, and science and technology communities to address cross-organizational issues and provide solutions. Dr. Coleman also interacts with other services and the Office of the Secretary of Defense on issues affecting the Department of the Air Force's technical enterprise. She serves on the Executive Committee of the Air Force Scientific Advisory Board and is the Principal Science and Technology Representative of the Air Force to the civilian scientific and engineering community and to the public at large.

Dr. Coleman is on leave from University of California, Berkeley. Since 2016, Dr. Coleman has held an academic research appointment at the Berkeley Center for Information Technology in the Interest of Society where she leads science and technology policy on microelectronics and efforts to develop tools for countering digital authoritarianism. Dr. Coleman has more than 35 years of experience in computer science and technology, including as both an academic leader and industry executive. Before DARPA, she served as the Chief Executive Officer of Atlas AI P.B.C, a Silicon Valley start-up that brings world-class artificial intelligence solutions to sustainable development. By combining satellite data with other data sets, Atlas AI's proprietary deep-learning models create actionable insights for governments, non-governmental organizations and commercial companies.

Dr. Coleman began her academic career in 1988 as a lecturer in computer science at Royal Holloway College, University of London, United Kingdom. She subsequently joined Queen Mary College, University of London, as a reader in computer science. There, she taught undergraduate and graduate courses in computer science, created a Master of Science program in Dependable Computer Systems and supervised Doctor of Philosophy students.

In 1998, Dr. Coleman became the founding director of the System Design Laboratory at SRI International. The lab conducted research in trustworthy systems and cyber security. The programs she directed won support from DARPA. She also participated in the creation of the technologies leading to the spinout of Siri prior to its acquisition by Apple. She worked alongside the newly-formed Department of Homeland Security, creating the department's cyber security agenda and becoming the founding Director of the DHS Cyber Security Research and Development Center. In 2004, Dr. Coleman became the Director of the Trust and Manageability Lab in the Corporate Technology Group of Intel and began serving as a member of Santa Clara University's Computer Science and Engineering Department's Advisory Board. In 2006, she became the Vice President of the Computer Science Laboratory at Samsung. In 2010, she took the position of Vice President of Software Engineering at Hewlett-Packard. In 2011, she became Nokia's Vice President of Emerging Platforms.

Dr. Coleman served as the Vice President of Engineering for Multi-Device UX Platforms for Yahoo in 2013, and then took the position of Senior Vice President of Research and Design at Harman International Industries Infotainment Business Unit. She then served as the Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer of Connected Home Business for Technicolor.

Beginning in 2016, Dr. Coleman served as the Chief Technology Officer of Wikimedia Foundation, the non-profit that supports Wikipedia, the world's fifth most visited website. During this time, Dr. Coleman also served as a member of the Defense Science Board, where she provided independent advice to the Secretary of Defense, USD(R&E), and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. She was a member of Lockheed Martin's Technology Advisory Group, the Airbus Star Program and continued her work on the Santa Clara University Computer Science and Engineering Advisory Board. She served on the Board of Directors of the Public Library of Science.

Prior to accepting the role of Chief Scientist, Dr. Coleman served as the 22nd Director of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency where she oversaw a large suite of disruptive and innovative programs.

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 [email protected].

Or, connect directly with The Cognitive Crucible podcast host, John Bicknell, on LinkedIn.

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