Orientation Is the Target: Cognitive Warfare & the Real OODA Loop | Svitlana Pavlovska

Svitlana Pavlovska wrote a 48-page analytical review this July, Cognitive Warfare. Opinion., that traces John Boyd from Energy-Maneuverability Theory through Destruction and Creation and Patterns of Conflict into the modern concepts of Decision Advantage, Cognitive Advantage, Narrative Intelligence, and Cognitive Security. She joins No Way Out to walk through it.

She spent her career in Ukraine's security forces, led public affairs departments, and finished her last NATO posting at Joint Force Command Naples in 2024. She retired two months ago and now heads analytical output at a private firm.

Her central claim is that orientation is the target. Information arriving at two people produces two different decisions, because orientation is where that information meets prior experience, knowledge, values, and culture. Cognitive operations are therefore designed to work on orientation rather than to transmit or deny information.

Brian "Ponch" Rivera and Pavlovska follow that through the progression her paper lays out, from material advantage to information advantage to decision advantage to cognitive advantage, and into Dr. James Giordano's argument that cognitive security means protecting the biological, psychological, and social foundations of cognition itself. Those three levels sit very close to the inputs Boyd puts inside the orientation box.

Also covered: why the European literature on the OODA loop reads as copies of one secondary source and cites a book Boyd never wrote, what AI has done to ordinary verification, the difference between NATO's defensive framing and the American operational framing of cognitive warfare, and why doctrine cannot be built while five different terms are used interchangeably.

John R. Boyd's Conceptual Spiral was originally titled No Way Out. In his own words: 

“There is no way out unless we can eliminate the features just cited. Since we don’t know how to do this, we must continue the whirl of reorientation…”

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Transcript

Svitlana Pavlovska: security forces, NATO, and cognitive warfare

Brian "Ponch" Rivera 0:21

Today's episode we have Svitlana Pavlovska. Did I say that correctly?

Svitlana Pavlovska 0:26

Yes, yes, correctly.

Brian "Ponch" Rivera 0:28

Okay. And uh did I have it right? Were you a colonel in the military at one point?

Svitlana Pavlovska 0:32

Right. I all my life I served in the in the forces, security forces organizers of my country, and I led it to the different type of public affairs departments. I was Speaker of Ministers and Commanders, and the last time, life period of my career, I served in the joint force headquarters of NATO. In 2024, I finished my last stain at the base of NATO in

NATO Naples, return to Ukraine, and analytical work

Svitlana Pavlovska 0:59

Europe, the joint force commander of SOS in Naples, Italy. And then back at my country, at home, in the period of so active combat action here, all the time bombing, rocket strikes. And two months ago I retried. Now I am civil, and at that moment I began to work in the big private company. Their one direction is consulting, and I'm ahead to send out their analytical results. And now I work these two directions that are very important in our current times. And one of the directions only for myself, I work myself only in this position, cognitive warfare. And uh why do you think it's very important for us to pay attention to cognitive warfare and everything would uh connect to this uh cognitive warfare like system of the loop? You see, uh the first time

Why cognitive warfare is urgent in the AI era

Svitlana Pavlovska 1:58

I I heard about the cognitive welfare in 2023, 2022, then I sorted the base and it was their big article of the one friend officer Francois de Closer and his colleague. Then there were some so pictured, so nice presentation from the Canadian vice, and that's all. And no active attention to this topic like now. Do you know why? Now I understand why, because this is the role of AE. In the period of the end of 2022 and beginning of the 2023, AE was not so effective, like efficient uh level like now. And in those periods we could recognize where the false, there is the fake, where is the real photo, real video, where they're created in Photoshop and so on. Now we don't have these positions, and AE, the main creator and register of everything we can see and what we need to see. And so uh what I can to say for current position. I began to deep study all spheres, all areas uh that are connected with the cognitive rapture and system of the loop, and what I understand, understood, and what I see clean.

Marketing language versus real research

Svitlana Pavlovska 3:23

Very popular topic. And uh sometimes I see that marketing depu uh much more marketing than uh science research. And uh everybody says about everything he thinks, about everything he can emad in in this area, cognitive war. Only one, only one small example for your for your understanding. I accept one invitation for the participation in uh uh big international forum which was dedicated to cognitive war, and the name of this forum, the name. The cognitive war warfare, the cognitive warfare, like a new domain.

Brian "Ponch" Rivera 4:06

It's a new no, it's not a new domain.

Svitlana Pavlovska 4:07

Domain and warfare. This is the different definitions. War can be in domain, but what could not be that domain? Domain is that sphere for some actions, like war. And it was the so high level of international assembly with the participation of the foreign guest, and nobody says about this non-relevant, non-current race. And this is primitive possibility of thinking about cognitive as angry. What I see in um I I think I need to say several words about the uh European science school

Cognitive warfare as a domain, war as an activity

Svitlana Pavlovska 4:44

in this area, NATO and your American. So in Europe, a lot of uh a lot of scholars about this topic. If you will see, for example, official net sources like Academia Edu, they published a lot of articles about cognitivo. This is uh articles about education, this is article about the psychological state of our new generation, this is article about how to write books, this is article about how we need to be in our habit for the saving our nation and so on. It's like uh something from the tools in information war we used before. Information war, uh strategic communication and so on. But uh I understand that these authors we want to be close to their

NATO, Europe, and uneven scholarship on cognitive warfare

Svitlana Pavlovska 5:33

definition of cognitive warfare, but we don't understand what is the real is. NATO began to be so useful, this American polynomial about the cognitive warfall after requiring it the American Congress for their preparing the assessment what is mean cognitive war and narrative intelligence. And they published some issues so nice, but these issues like a recommendation. And in one article of the in one article of their student of their NATO Defense College, I read that now in NATO and they have the question how to organize, how to establish the new brand which will be in attention to this topic, cognitive warfare. Differing positions, uh yes, they are very important, but not about the the main the main point, the main case stone of cognitive warfare and loops. And I read only five or six articles about odaloops and they are so with published on Academia Edu. And they all they all like uh from one write it from one source, like from Wikipedia, or don't know. Everything's the same, everything's the same, they are like uh copies of one text, no, something different interpretation,

Why institutions still lack a working framework

Svitlana Pavlovska 6:56

and and so and about yeah, Americans point of view, K Stone, uh this your so important position, of course. I think that nobody from my country exactly read all articles of Mr. Jordana, read all available uh issues of uh Mrs. May Mam, uh this young and so uh what I want to say exactly, we need institualization, we need uh some some position for systematical uh systematization of this issue, and then you will have uh some frame, so strong frame for definition and for explanation of this whole position which adapted with the cognitive birth, it will be everything okay. And for all other, it will be like frame, like example in wind direction, they know they we need to go, they need to move, you see, and now and now sometimes I think that everybody wants to say something about it, but they don't know what to say.

Brian "Ponch" Rivera 7:59

Yeah. So let's build on some context here. So this is this is great. So uh you are in a combat zone. You're you're in in in the Ukraine, you're in or Ukraine, you're in in Kiev. I'm in Virginia Beach, just outside of uh fork, Virginia, where NATO ACT lives. Just about seven to ten houses away from here is where uh Franz was single penned science strategy and warfare, right? When he was working here at NATO ACT. Uh

The case for a common definition of cognitive warfare

Brian "Ponch" Rivera 8:24

I believe he was here at NATO ACT for a while. So um the OODA loop is, you know, people take it as observe oriented side act, it's a simple linear process, it's not the way John Boyd gave it to us. And and I think having you sit in a talking about cognitive warfare from a position where you could be at any moment uh running down to to protect yourself from incoming Russian missiles says a lot. So cognitive warfare, and I want to kind of reiterate something you you brought up a moment ago. This isn't new. And if you look at John Boyd's work, and and again, I'm not saying John Boyd knows everything, I'm just saying he was pointing at things and looking at different sources, different domains, and he identified early on that uh machines don't fight wars, humans do, and they use their minds, right? It's it's up, it's it's a cognitive war that's always been there. It's it's no even if we build a bunch of robots and drones and AI capability, at the end of the day, it's still gonna be humans that determine who wins or loses a war, right? We you just can't send robots to fight robots and pretend like that's gonna end in something. The human will always be part of the system, and I think that's where uh things have kind of gone off the rail. One other point before I turn it back to you. Uh NATO came out with a document about a year ago,

The real OODA loop: orientation is not a step in a line

Brian "Ponch" Rivera 9:40

maybe eight months ago, on uh cognitive warfare. And it was really good. It's really solid. And they actually bring in the OODA loop. They use a great diagram of the OODA loop, but they use a linear description of it as though first we observe, then we orient, then we decide, then we act. That's not how neuroscience works. That's not how ecological dynamics works, that's not how the brain works. It's just it's just a misrepresentation of how we uh engage with reality. So I think what I saw in your document, we can share a link to that, the one that your uh organization put out in July. Um it says that you're looking at the OODA loop correctly and trying to understand um uh if if in fact we should be using that that type of thinking instead of understanding cognitive war. And and you wrote about the uh, you know, our Secretary of Defense, our government has made it clear that we have to define what cognitive war is. Uh and you mentioned folks like uh Dr. Giardano, uh, who's been on this show before, who knows the Oodaloop, at least the linear aspect of the Oodaloop, and he understands neuroscience too. So it's just bringing it all together. It's like, why would we talk about a linear thing when we have a nonlinear system uh that is is helping us engage with this this world? And I think that's where you're going with the work that I saw is you're trying to bring bridge the what's what's actual science

NATO's cognitive warfare document and the linear OODA mistake

Brian "Ponch" Rivera 11:01

say with uh what's really behind the loop and what what is cognitive war? So I just wanted to say that before we continue this conversation, just so we build some context for our listeners.

Svitlana Pavlovska 11:10

So thought But you know, you know, you know, uh Brian, uh in uh Italy is the con I like, I like, and I want to remind you, Institute of Cognitive Security, that's headed by Sara Russa and you are following each other. Yes. And uh and she is the only one who published the relevant assessment of uh the uh stolar activity in the European Union, in NATO, and your American resulters in this sphere, in this area of cognitive warfare. And I agree with her, but she she was very polite, I want to say, in this in this assessment. But again, again, uh we need to be in one direction because this is so uh significant uh position for our uh for our modern um world. And now we are in this in this war. Uh we Ukraine in this war, and uh I'm sorry, and we uh we all the time, all the day, all the time, we can use uh the content, and we don't know this is true or not true, this is a deep shakes, and especially I read a lot of information about the same situation about the describing the war uh in Iran. Then uh, for example, Grok uh Grok creates no at wait moment Grok uh says that this is real uh footage and the second second and second secondary uh grog uh published that this was created by IE and uh the thought the third second again, this is a real footage. Nobody know to believe or not believe how to percept and what is the conclusion from everything we are reading and we are seeing at that moment. And I understand now that all the time arise and roll of AE, this is the main reason to be more faster on the way to institutionalization and unification, everything that adjusted with the cognitive warfare. And uh this is very, uh so I won't say you that no, can I say you a few words about the Russia Federation that are our our our main enemy?

Brian "Ponch" Rivera 13:24

Yeah. So let me let me let me let's build some more context before we go into that. So uh based on this past weekend's news feeds here

Cognitive security and the need for serious assessment

Brian "Ponch" Rivera 13:33

in the US, and and there's a lot of things going on in the world that that Americans don't know what's happening, but one of the dominant stories over the weekend has been the USS Abraham Lincoln. The sailors on there are unhappy, they're jumping off ship, you know.

Speaker 1 13:47

I I see, I see what we're doing.

Brian "Ponch" Rivera 13:49

See, see, but but that that story can get amplified and shared many ways. Now, having been in the Navy for 28 years, I can tell you that living on a ship is not a lot of fun. And that's what what I'm hearing from them is pretty common. In fact, we had the USS George Washington here in Port Norfolk for a while, where several sailors killed themselves, but that never got the attention of what the what's going on now. So it's just the amplification of information that could be coming from anywhere. Yes, yeah, or the dampening of information that could be be uh that's another action people take is they try to dampen information. And that's what's happening here. So Americans might not uh you know that's a story that's here in the U.S. Most Americans don't pay attention to what's going on anywhere else unless there's a meme or a a one-day story, right? And our attention spans are so short that uh we're we're you know, we know we're constant, well, I know we're constantly under attack. So uh going back to where does this emanate, where does this start from? Who's who's behind all this? Well, probably not, you know, it's not a left or right thing as people make it out to be in the U.S. It's probably more coming from our enemies, our threats, because yeah, because at the end of the day, when you look at what John Boyd put together, and and if you understand cognitive warfare a little bit more, you want the system to collapse on itself,

AI, fake footage, and the collapse of visual trust

Brian "Ponch" Rivera 15:06

right? So by getting inside the OODA loop, and that's what people say here, is uh you give uh create confusion disorder within a system, and in our case the American system or uh Western civilization or whatever you want to call it, it collapses on itself. And that's the ultimate way to win a war. And that I think is known by our enemies, it's known by Iran, it's known by everybody, but it's not known by Americans. We don't understand that. So can you give us some more background on the Russian influence?

Svitlana Pavlovska 16:34

Yes, I won't continue on my topic uh, and uh I won't continue on my words about the significant positions of uh cognitive warfare today for everybody, for all participators of this uh military combat actions. Several words about the beginning. This war was begun. Uh we remember the old uh minister uh head of Minister of Defense of Russia Federation with the surname Shoibu. He had the official advisor. Advisor was the Andrei Ilnitsky, and he created uh at wait moment began to sound uh cognitive warfare. And Russia began to say that they have no cognitive warfare, they have mental warfare. And the author of this conception and this uh strategy, how he taught, was Andrei Ilnitsky. He was the official advisor of the Minister of Defense of Russia Federation. Then we remember period when the Minister of Defense was tainted, and this official advisor was retraced like Minister. And after this position, there were all silence aspect about different types of war in the information area. Only one time I read official statements about in Russia Federation they create their working group of specialists of high level for the working in the strategy of the some types of information war. And they don't say about it nothing for this for this period. They don't say about the what type of information war they have or with the official status, but they continue to work. And I read in the internet several articles of famous Russian researchers, and they they study all the loop systems. They study order loop system area of military resistance, how to be more effective in the front line without the old rulers and the old traditions that we have from the Soviet Union period times. And so if you see their especially is and they know that their victory positions to be unpredictable and they are now publish something very important. All the time, the main questions we prefer to resolve in the undercupet, undercupet, without the spreading this information, official or non-official. But why I tell now so so fragmentary, why I tell you about the Russia Federation?

Russia's early framing of mental and cognitive warfare

Svitlana Pavlovska 19:19

Because now then we say about Russia, we need to say about China and North Korea. The three countries in one axis, yes. And these three countries they are a little bit similar because all three countries with a similar ideological element. And sometimes we cannot understand some positions, some statements, some activity, because we are different. We are with our mentality, with specialty of our cultural religion and historical development. They have the other positions. And they know, especially time, Russia, that their unpredictability is so useful for them. And that is why a long time they know sound about some strategical document that they accept and may work it. And so we need for us, for us, it's very important to understand that they work in this pr in this direction, and we don't know how it will be named, and we don't know what will be definition, but uh certainly they use all your results of your scientific activity of your solars, and they are so smart, they are no primitive. This is a so strong enemy for everybody, and uh we need to account for this position, and again, we need institutionalization, our cognitive warfare in your country for being more stronger and efficient direction. So that is why. That is why I think it must be like some common issues for doing all together in this position, and maybe your participation in all European activities for the spreading information about order looping in frame of the cognitive workflow, it will be more useful for all us. And I'm sure for example, I don't know why, but I thought about it at that moment that for example your participation in some event of a high level in Ukraine with your theoretical position about how we can and you are former military, how we can use this is a position, this old I'm sorry, the loop loop system, it will be so useful for all our uh for all our level of politicians and military. And I can say you that the

Unpredictability as strategy: Russia, China, North Korea

Svitlana Pavlovska 21:39

last in this context that in the beginning of the war in the armed forces of Ukraine they accepted some rulers for the uh permission for the commanders of the uh medium and uh lower levels, operational and tactical levels, to be independent in their results and their solutions and in their assessment. This is your orientation, the same position from your Donald Trump.

Brian "Ponch" Rivera 22:01

Yeah, this so there's an interesting connection here. One of our guests and one of our friends of the show is Don Vandergriff, who wrote about Mission Command, and he's written written several books about mission command. And we do know that it's been translated, and your war fighters are using that document, and you just brought it up, that they're having an autonomous approach to fighting a war. Uh by the way, that is what John Boyd looked at. So you know, he looked at uh a lot of a lot of German uh World War I, World War II tactics and and and lessons from their professional military education and saw that they were using mission command approaches, right, which is small autonomous teams, uh giving them intent and all that. That is happening right now in Ukraine. We know that. We we we've seen the documents, we've seen you could see the type of maneuver warfare that's happening there, the innovation, adaptability, and all that. That's that's central to uh what John Boyd was looking at with the Observer White to Side Act and how we ended up sketching it. So the the point you bring up about educating folks on understanding uh and and it again, it's not about understanding OODA loop, it's about understanding how living systems engage with the changing environment. The ODA loop happens to explain some of that and connect to modern neuroscience and things like active inference, which has deep connections to physical AI, the next generation of AI. You have a deeper connection to how here in the US we've been manipulating. By Facebook and other organizations by the same science, right? They look at these things and go, well, how do we do this to create a customer? Right? How do we do that stuff? That's the same, it's it's it's the same type of thinking that has, I guess, been around for centuries. It's it's how do I influence somebody to get what I want? By the way, that's called leadership too, right? So leadership, cognitive warfare, building a customer, this isn't any different, in my view. Uh I I may be attacked for that, but if you if you understand how uh a system is uh embedded in its environment and see how they interact, that's what John Boyd gave us. But most researchers don't look at it like that. They look at it as a four-step circular approach, or they do put the sketch up there, but they forget that there's other things pointing in there that are very important. So so yes, the the I I have seen people in in the are in in the US write documents and books that have been adopted by Ukrainian leaders, and they're working, right? And and they do work. We know this, and that's Don Vandergriff and all this.

Svitlana Pavlovska 24:30

I agree with you. I agree with you. It can be so useful, and I want to support your point of view uh greatly. And you know, then I again I want to back to my experience for studying all articles and uh all issues about the old loops in uh among the European uh the European uh era scholars. All the time then I read that the book which was written by John Boyd, and I understood that these people they didn't read those

Ukraine's operational independence and mission command

Svitlana Pavlovska 24:58

sources because he didn't read book. He didn't so he didn't write book. I'm sorry, he didn't write book. He he he he only combined his statement, his uh some lections and text he used in his professional activity. And of course, uh it must be so useful for everybody because it's only improving our skills to be uh more efficient in every type of our professional activity, especially in uh in our military area. And I'm sure it can be useful for two sides for us and for you for theoretical science uh representatives. Why? Because Ukraine already Ukraine today this is a Nikia country. Nikia country, this is a Nikia uh experience of participating in the type of in the role of new type, real new type. And all the time we need to be in readiness uh to fix the uh necessity of our modern time, to be efficient in our technology and technical sphere, our legislation, the solution of our politician politics, and all the time we need to combine all these positions for having a result for our success in front line. And so our military leaders today they are the carrier of their unique uh experience for everybody like you, and uh effectively it uh reflects the order loop system, really. But I think if adaptation all um acknowledge the Doibond and your modern resources, it will be so useful for everybody, not in Ukraine for you and for everybody who wants to be more official

Influence science: same tools in business and in warfare

Svitlana Pavlovska 26:46

in his uh in his algorithm of uh leadership and the good result for their activities.

Brian "Ponch" Rivera 26:54

Yeah, I appreciate that. I wonder if we can look at the uh your excuse me, your July paper. It's it's 55 pages long. I'm looking at it now because you do bring up some great things in there. Can you give me some background on how you got involved? Uh by the way, I don't have the name of the company in front of me with with writing these documents. And who are they targeting, by the way? Is it is it for is it a global audience? Is it a NATO audience? Uh who who who should be reading these articles? And I'll share one with you on the screen as we're talking about this.

Svitlana Pavlovska 27:21

Yes, I I worked only these uh articles we'd published in the official SU Yeah Yeah, I see, I see.

Speaker 1 27:32

This is my result of my job, yeah.

Brian "Ponch" Rivera 27:35

Yeah, so we'll start there.

Svitlana Pavlovska 27:37

Yeah, so this is my job. I work uh alone in these old materials. This is so hardly but uh very interesting, and I'm all the time this is great satisfaction from all my results.

Speaker 1 27:52

And you know, I listen to Go ahead.

Brian "Ponch" Rivera 27:58

I would I'm just sure I'm just sharing on the screen with the our our our folks that have the video, or they can see uh and I will put the link to the document in the uh show notes. But you can see here that you actually have the formation of John Boyd's military uh theoretical thought. You go into theory, which very few folks do, then you also talk about destruction and creation. And I think you do a great job in making a strong connection to between cognitive war and and all warfare to to Boyd's work. So this is a to me, this is like a must-read document for folks if they want to learn about it. And I think even if you're a business leader, you should read this document because it's valuable because it helps you understand how to lead, right? I I I believe that's a good thing.

Svitlana Pavlovska 28:41

Yeah, this is the yeah, this is the common algorithm on the global level. You're right, I agree with you. But uh why why you say about it in this issue? Because this is a real example, and this is a practical uh reflection. Everything we talk about, the all the look right.

Brian "Ponch" Rivera 29:03

No, I I thought it's great and it it points to, you know, I like the theory, and most people don't know that theory is is foundational to the the the development of the F-16, which you

Why John Boyd's work is practical, not academic

Brian "Ponch" Rivera 29:13

have now, right? You have the F-16 fighter. I don't know how many you have. I don't know how well they're doing, by the way. I don't I we don't I don't we don't uh we don't know what's going on over there, I to be honest with you. I don't spend a lot of time on it. I I did hear that MiG-31s were using the long-range uh weapon capability and Ukraine was targeting the base of that, which makes sense, right? It's it's uh you get a a fast flying aircraft that can release a weapon, and if you take that capability out, uh that's a good thing. So uh you know, I understand your F-16s are taking down drones. It's drone warfare, it's a different type of warfare. Can can you talk a little bit more about um uh we'll we'll step outside of cognitive war, even though this to me this what's happening in Ukraine is it's still a cognitive war. What what what's happening in in Ukraine that you can share with us now so our listeners can start to understand uh a little bit more about your perspective on the importance of uh understanding cognitive warfare?

Speaker 1 30:12

Difficult question.

Svitlana Pavlovska 30:14

Everything depends uh from uh from our success on the front line. We need uh to be in victory and uh we will do it. But so when we began to work this topic and when we began to uh publish these issues, a lot of my colleagues from the size area they began to interested to be interested in it, and so for the some questions I prepared more um scale position about what we wanted to know. And these positions are connected about the maybe perspective about uh all we want to see. So I want to say that uh the practic uh the practic evidence of everything you talk about your old loop we have now. And you talk in some theory, it's only according to the Ukraine. And you say about the theory positions we need to establish in our real life. And we need to to reduce the we need to uh to to to implementate our practice result with your theoretical frame, and it will be so nuke your experience of uh loop in Ukrainian war against the the occupation, against the Russia Federation like enemy. And so I talked today in beginning of my I'm sorry, in the beginning of my statement, uh that our for example, I cannot say about everything you understand war and uh I cannot say about, but I can say about uh the information from the open sources. We have now some positions about the interoperability, we are knowing that unfortunately. And in the beginning and before war, in the beginning of the war, unfortunately we had a lot of rulers and tradition from the great and very long period of the Soviet Union and Russia Federation influence. And now our leadership, our military leadership, uh we were so active for the change in our algorithms of activity for our commanders on operational, on uh strategical and tactical levels. And I told you that uh now a lot of now some levels of our commanders they are so independently for their assessment of situation and uh accepting some solutions, uh, what we need to do with your staff and for using the military equipment they have. And uh they they can to have your own salvation, what type of military equipment they need, and they can to buy this equipment, uh it's permission from our politician power. It's very important for the adaptation, the legislation, the governmental power to the necessity of our wartime, and uh it's very important for all our military commanders and leaders to be more independent in assessment of this situation for the having results they are looking for. And this is war will be a long time like subject for the stolers in all aspects. Firstly, we need to

F-16s, drones, and the changing shape of war

Svitlana Pavlovska 33:19

be in our victory. But I'm sure if we will begin to be I'm so sorry, if we will begin to be together in establishing our position in resultative order loot system, it will be only best uh best future for our for for organizing non-organizing for their formation, their decision making algorithm in new uh circumstances of their war of new type. And uh it's very important and uh it's critically important for everybody who I now need to be prepared for the possible uh resistance uh to so strong and so flexible enemies like our enemies. Right.

Brian "Ponch" Rivera 34:04

Like our enemy. So I'm wondering it's yeah, this is this is a major threat, and I think the most people don't realize that most people think of warfare as being physical and destruction, right? That that that's you know, war only starts when you're under attack by a uh a a weapon, uh some type of high order device or something like that. The truth is uh the way we look at it, we is we've been at war for a long time. And this war has been a gray area war, if you want to call it that. It's a liminal war, it's it's uh without any attribution sometimes. It's happening all around us. And this is I think why hearing from you inside of Ukraine talking about cognitive warfare should send signals to people around the world say, hey, if if this is so important inside of a war-torn uh in a war zone, it's gotta be important outside. And and and my view again is uh we are under constant attack from state and non-state actors in this domain all the time. And that's why, to me, under you know, one aspect of understanding the real observer-oriented side act loop and the pathways, perception, the planning, the expected free energy, um, the engagement with the external world, uh, the unfolding circumstances, which are just nothing more than another actor's information or narrative or actions that we that we take in are important. And and uh I I wonder if you can go there and and talk about some, and maybe you have already, but the narrative warfare piece, the the storytelling a little bit more and how important that's shaping the views with within the uh Ukrainian people and the Americans.

Svitlana Pavlovska 35:36

Yeah, for sure, you're right. And I'm sure you are right uh exactly uh because uh we have a lot of common position in our resistance to our side enemy. You remember, yes, the positions of Mr. Jerdana about the influence from outside and inside, and outside this like uh some positions from the somebody who wants to react who wanted to use uh his influence for us and inside our process of thinking and decision making in this moment, and what is the indicators are this influence for this process. And um, it's all uh combined in all processing of explanation, everything we need to accept for us. This is right or no right, this is a false fake, or this is the truth. And uh very important in understanding what is the indicators for the assessment of this content, and to listen yourself, to listen your information, and this is the level of orientation, and know to be to be free from all other influence and the moment, and to use your uh your imagination and your perception positions in assessment, what is your see, what is your read, and this is your information or not your information. Especially we we can say about it in the social page. For example, a small example for no, I will know name this is a social page so popular and so popular, for example, for us. And last time I saw a lot of group, uh historical groups, uh, historical uh societies, uh there uh they use uh the AE generated footage, so photo, video which are generated by AE. And for example, these uh groups they say, no, for example, about the how in the United States in the first half of last century people uh lived so in poverty and uh they were so poor and they were so unhappy, and uh a lot of photo. But all photo they are generated by IE, it's visible. It's visible. No, I see it clear. No, for example, a small example. This is mother that wants to sell her daughter's twin because she doesn't have American mother in some state in the 30th year or last century, and uh she was so poor and she doesn't have what to feed her daughters and she wants to sell them. And these daughters' twins, they have only one pair of shorts, and uh so these shows are so long, and they wear these shows with the newspaper inside of these shows and a photo. And AE generates this photo, these uh pieces of uh newspaper rape it the leg, not inside the shows. You see? No, you understand what about ISA and then your the size of your leg so small and a lot of space in your shoes, something must be inside. Yeah, and uh the text says that one pair of one pair for the showers for the two daughters, and they all the time you are with the newspapers inside. And on the photo this newspaper around the leg, around the leg and not inside the shrewers. And I understand that this is a photo generated by AE because nobody rapes it legs, uh you see, and this this is only one example, and a lot of examples like this I see every day, a lot of times. But uh, I'm not sure that every consumer of this uh all representatives of the target audience can see these positions, they can understand that this is not true. This is manipulation by this photo for the creation, some attitude, some format of some frame of exception to this topic. Topic about the poor people and happy and an unacceptable position for the life in one country, you see? And uh I see it a lot of time every day. And this this is very important to to study people, to educate them in this information how to say DDN, maybe I don't know. Information, DDN. No, then you

Narrative warfare and how people judge truth

Svitlana Pavlovska 39:55

wash your your hands, your face, and you need to wash your exception, your perception, yeah, and and to have some indicators for the for the for the having your your opinion, this is true or this is fake. You see, a lot of accounts today created by all participator of military resistance about the fake, about the fake, what is fake, what is true, but a lot of enormous information we don't have physical time to read everything and to to think about everything. And I don't know what we can to do in physical level. This is a development of the AE. Maybe at that period we can do nothing, but we need to be so useful and to be stronger in this position. What about we are saying today in this podcast? It must be education of the all target uh audio types of target audience for them to be more sensitive to perception, all type of information, and on the first steps of perception to understand that this is fake or this is true, and your daloops and this is period of orientation. It's so useful for these positions because this is lack this is lessons for everybody how to be efficient in the first state of recognizing this is a fake or this isn't true. You see, it's so useful. And uh, I uh Dr Dr. Dardana he told in some of his articles about the cognitive war. This is the cognitive war like uh kinetic, like non-kinetic war, two perceptions of cognitive warfare. I'm sorry, and this is the first time then I see this is double position, one definition in this sphere. All the time we told that all uh information only in non-kinetic war, how to be more efficient, how to uh have the result in political and military military targets uh without without a big losses for the minimization of losses. And all the time we talk about the non-kinetic war. So it was in ideal state, like we can do something for no use in technique, military, guns, and so on, and military equipment and so on, and we came to have our target to realize in our expectations. But uh Mr. Dardana he organized it with a point of view on its necessary necessity with uh cognitive warfare, with the firstly, the the especially of kinetic war and non-kinetic war. And it's so strong and so huge

Case study: an AI-generated historical image

Svitlana Pavlovska 42:40

a position for the science researchers, and uh this is must be so important for our scholars, you see. And that is why I again repeat you that you we need your participation in our science activity, in our education physicians, and uh of course in the uh necessity of institualization and systematization all we know at that moment about the cognitive warfare or develop system, like a main element of cognitive warfare. And it's very important for our future existing, existing like people who can be indifferent in this is a huge number of content and normal content fake, fake, no true. And this these questions they are so difficult, they are so important, and uh they are on the beginning of our so long straight for the resolving this problem. But we need to do it and we need to begin to resolve these problems.

Brian "Ponch" Rivera 43:46

Well, I think we could do a better job in uh taking breaking down how the OODA loop actually works. We'll do that with some videos, we'll put that out there so people have free access to that. Uh the podcast, you know, we have 176 episodes. We've we've had many neuroscientists on, many cognitive scientists on, we've had Dr. Giordano, we've had many people look at Bray Area Warfare with us, and I would say that uh we've we've kind of been ahead of a lot of that, and you're starting to see, you like I said, the NATO's picking this up, everybody starting to talk about it, but I think they're missing out again on the on some of the deeper like go visit the archives, understand John Boyd, look at what he what's behind that. If you're going to use that in any document or any type of uh conversation, make sure you understand what you're talking about. And to be honest, we're still learning about uh how advanced John Boyd's thinking was, because what he was talking about was 30 years ago, right? He's he's bringing these things into conversations, but we're just starting to realize it today. What what is that what is that diagram, that sketch that he drew meant? Is it the end all? Is it can it still evolve? And the answer is yes. Um, how does it connect to modern neuroscience, what we're learning from things like the free energy principle, what we're learning from ecological dynamics, which is really about how living systems perceive and act with an environment, affordances, attractors. Uh, we're getting into into things like platonic space, which which could be valuable and biological type of uh scenarios. Clearly, with genetics, when you're when you're looking at uh processed food here in the US, what that does to The genetic makeup of our bodies over time, how that changes us, how our culture and symbols and language changes us, and how a good night's sleep last night changes us, right? So what did you eat yesterday? Did you get some sleep? Are you doing breathing exercises? Where'd you go to school? And of course, going back to understanding how to defend yourself or navigate this world of AI and this cognitive war that's happening, there are tools, techniques, and methods out there that you can you can bring in and help yourself, like just putting your phone down, you know, powering down your phone at night, getting away from

Teaching people to recognize fake content early

Brian "Ponch" Rivera 45:52

technology, learning things like red teaming techniques. Uh red teaming techniques would be liberating structures, how to make mitigate cognitive biases. Those types of tools and techniques exist. And that's what we you when you look at the John Boyd's work and other people's work, by the way, this this includes Google, this includes cybernetics, it includes physical mysticism, quantum physics, uh, biology, anthropology. You look at what the first principles say and you build your techniques off of that. By the way, that's what they're doing, they're learning to attack are those first principles. What do you how are we designed? How you know the tribalism in the in a in our I'll call it our makeup as being humans, uh, our biases, our heuristics, you know, our our our safety, our requirement for safety. So if you understand these things, you can attack them. And if you don't understand them, you're going to be attacked all the time. And I think that's what's what's happening today. It is a leadership moment. Leaders can still use this information to be big become better leaders. It's no different. And I think what people will get mad at me for saying that is it's it's you know different sides of a coin. I can use it for warfare or I can use it for leadership. Right? It's understanding this is absolutely critical. And if you don't understand it, that's that's fine too. You'll be dominated, that's for sure. What else what else can we talk about today that uh since I have you for a few more minutes? Any anything else you want to explore?

Svitlana Pavlovska 47:18

I want to say several words about everything you talk now, and I'm completely agree with you. It's a very important aspect of our conversation about the future of humans and uh yes, the level of education. You talk about their, I think a book of Ajit Mann and Plato's year. Plato's first Plato's fear, she wrote this book, and Mrs. Ajaid Mann, she is a creator of a definition of a narrative rock. And uh she wrote

Kinetic and non-kinetic thinking in cognitive warfare

Svitlana Pavlovska 47:47

so significant and very important book for understanding how how narratives, how definitions so brightly is a strong influence for our perception, our reality. And uh for sure, you you are right, completely right. The level of education must be so high. I don't remember there, but uh in Substack I read one phrase that if you want to devastate the nation, you need can't be you need to change their uh system of education, you need low the education, and then this generation, young generation will know now about their culture, their writers, their history, their religions. So after 20, 25 years, they will be the only physical corpse without nothing. And they will know uh about something very important and very significant in their life. And so for our leaders it's very important to be to have a good education result with this great influence for your professional activity. And of course then we understand, no, then our leadership they understand all specialities over the historical, religion, cultural development of different countries, different aspects of our life, they can combine something what can be very important in that moment for some salvation in this situation, in these currently uh circumstances. And this task is multinational, this task is more complicated. And I'm so happy to speak about it because I'm sure and I'm sure that all these aspects we can uh put in our system or the loop and don't boy talk about it. And I told them you have some experience, you have some acknowledgment, uh, for example, for pilot, for military, for military commander, uh, you have some experience, some uh acknowledge about the type of these combat actions, but you know how it could be, how it can be, but you have your own separate solution about how you can do it. And this is the main position and very important for him to be efficient in this situation because he used experience, he used something, he but he created the new solution, he created the new result, and very important because this results fix the current situation, the current circumstances. And uh I'm sure we need so I'm I'm sorry from the one point of view to the other. I'm sure we need to continue our conversation. I'm sure we continue we need to continue our speaking about all points, the case tones are very important for all both. Today we took some several very important case tones, but I'm sure we can uh continue on our conversation about separately to the point of view in some positions which are very important, for example, in this in this time. And I don't know, my uh phones are so

Boyd, neuroscience, ecological dynamics, and AI

Svitlana Pavlovska 50:51

active today. Uh and I'm so grateful to you for this invitation and uh maybe a little bit chaotic reaction for everybody we wanted to talk about today, but I'm sure we will continue on our meetings in this uh format, in this podcast, for the in our clear opinion in everything we are interested in.

Brian "Ponch" Rivera 51:13

Absolutely. I appreciate you joining me today. Uh I'll keep you on here for a few moments after we stop recording. And uh again, uh our our listeners can find you on LinkedIn. And how else can they find you?

Svitlana Pavlovska 51:24

Sorry, I didn't listen.

Brian "Ponch" Rivera 51:26

Yes, how can they how can our listeners uh get in touch with you other than LinkedIn? Um do you have a website or any place they can look at your work?

Svitlana Pavlovska 51:35

Yeah, our uh I took you that uh we are working in this direction one two months, and our website uh now in finishing off the work in this visit, and uh only this website will be ready. I will represent you this website. And now we are only publishing our issues in LinkedIn, in Substocks, and in other social pages where can be our target audience, and we have the address sharing our issues, which is very important for a lot of my colleagues because uh everybody understands the cybersecurity with the mails in current times.

Brian "Ponch" Rivera 52:11

Yes.

Svitlana Pavlovska 52:12

That is why, yeah. We we are working with our website, we are working, and I'm sure the nearest time it will be finished, but we need to do everything for the having a good protect for the working with it and uh for our meeting and uh common use in this source.

Brian "Ponch" Rivera 52:28

Okay, well, I I'll I'll give everybody the link to the uh current documents on how to find them on LinkedIn, and I will look forward to getting that uh new update on the website. So, again, thanks for joining us. I'm gonna keep you on here for a few moments and then uh we'll uh we'll conclude it there. Thanks. Thanks again. Bye, everybody.

Svitlana Pavlovska 52:43

Thank thank you for having me.