Miclaucic’s “Cognitive War” is simply renaming ‘Propaganda War’

 

Miclaucic’s “Cognitive War” is simply renaming ‘Propaganda War’

Michael Miclaucic’s Chicago Tribune op-ed “The West is losing the cognitive war with Russia and China” is hyperbolic nonsense

Ask a hundred folks who study US foreign relations what ‘cognitive war’ is and you’ll likely draw a hundred blanks.

Yet, esteemed foreign policy educator/journalist Michael Miclaucic spends nearly a thousand words trying to convince Trib readers there is such a thing as cognitive war and that America is ominously losing this war to China and Russia in the real war for world domination.

Miclaucic defines it as “the strategic manipulation of information and redirection of perception for the purpose of waging war and achieving war goals.” That is simply propaganda, a nation putting its best foot forward in defining its actions and goals in the world stage. And it has been around since the first peoples began waring with each other thousands of years ago.

Miclaucic posits US foreign policy is just fine but that we’re losing this propaganda war to “sworn enemies Russia and China.”

He’s wrong on both points. US foreign policy is not fine, it’s a mess. Enabling Israeli genocide in Gaza. Making the Russian invasion of Ukraine inevitable thru 23 years of NATO expansion onto Russia’s borders. Publicly proclaiming getting prepared for war with China. Sanctioning dozens of countries and likely thousands of foreign individuals simply for not buckling to our foreign policy demands.

Nor are Russia and China America’s sworn enemies. The former is pushing back against US adventurism with NATO expansion in Europe. The latter is responding to US ramping up possible war over Taiwan. Neither entanglement is connected to America’s true national security interests.

It’s not better messaging from China and Russia that has caused much of the world to withdraw from US unipolar dominance to join BRICS and Shanghai Cooperation Organization. It’s America’s bullying and belligerence worldwide marking the end of America as the world’s sole superpower.

Michael Miclaucic’s ominous warning of US decline harkens back 70 years ago when commentators screamed ‘The Russians are coming, the Russians are coming.’ Nothing much has changed for Miclaucic except now it’s ‘The Russians and Chinese are coming, the Russians and Chinese are coming.’  

Walt Zlotow, West Suburban Peace Coalition, Glen Ellyn IL