WAR ON THE MIND

In the wake of Op Sindoor, RAJ MEHTA explores the enemy's mind; our minds; the minds of nation-states who are pro-India, against India; fence sitting nation states and non-state actors

- RAJ MEHTA

A war these days raises many questions. Is it a Psychological War? Information War (IW)? Information Operations (IO)? Is it Electronic War (EW)? Cyber War? AI War in its diverse applications: Large Language Models (LLM) such as DeepSeek, Grok? Is it, as a thread, Deepfake video formats or Alexa-like, military or political apex voices and personality clones? Is it a Disinformation War? The very layered Russian Maskirovka? Is it the famous Chanakya Neeti of Saam (Diplomacy)-Daam (Bribes)-Dand (Punishment)-Bhed (Deception) circa 3 BCE? Is it pure deception; winning wars without fighting them as enunciated by Sun Tzu in 5 BCE? Is the war on the mind inclusive of all these strands and much more of which today, due to exploding technologies?

Take for example the fascinating merger of psychology and technology; psycho-technology (application of technology for psychological purposes for inducing behavioural changes that are desired). How far can this merger go? We currently have just a faint notion such as pilot-missile target guidance with a computer interface either actual or brain/hand embedded.

Hypersonic missiles fired or redirected by say a lone hacktivist that he nurses on digital channels to reach cross Indo-Pak or cross Sino-Pak border targets hundreds of kilometers away in seconds. We also need to remember that war on the mind is not war in the mind; an altogether new discipline demanding huge mental hygiene or facing the consequences of the lack of such mental sanitation. The decision to go nuclear or remain below such a red line is a function of war on the mind and inside it but let's follow that Hiroshima-Nagasaki syndrome some other day...