Cognitive Resilience as Civilian Defence: Defending democratic agency against cognitive warfare without militarising civilian life

This paper proposes a framework for understanding and implementing cognitive resilience as a core component of unarmed civilian-based defence (CND). It argues that in modern hybrid conflicts, the primary battleground is often the cognitive domain, where disinformation, propaganda, and cognitive warfare aim to erode societal trust, polarize populations, and undermine democratic resilience from within. Drawing on historical and contemporary cases—including the ongoing information warfare aspects of the conflict in Ukraine—the presentation will analyse how state and non-state actors weaponize information. It will critically examine the limitations of purely military or top-down governmental approaches to countering these threats, which often risk compromising civil liberties and public trust. The core thesis is that a robust, proactive civilian defence must include societal strategies for cognitive preparedness. This involves: 1. Education & Literacy: Integrating critical thinking and digital/media literacy into public education and lifelong learning, moving beyond simple "fact-checking" to understanding narrative manipulation and emotional triggers. 2. Networked Civil Society Response: Empowering local communities, professional groups (e.g., journalists, teachers), and NGOs to rapidly identify, debunk, and create counter-narratives to malign information campaigns, fostering social cohesion. 3. Strategic Non-Cooperation: Applying principles of civil resistance—such as collective refusal to amplify hostile narratives, boycotts of manipulated platforms, and symbolic acts—to deny aggressors the psychological leverage they seek. This approach reframes "civilian deterrence" to include making a society cognitively "insaisissable" (elusive)—resistant to manipulation and unified in its defence of shared democratic values. The paper concludes by discussing the policy implications for integrating cognitive resilience into national "whole-of-society" defence strategies, ensuring they are rooted in human rights and empower, rather than militarize, the civilian population.