Text taken from the Telegram channel of budni_manipulyatora
Additional text taken from an article posted at Small Wars Journal
Commentary by Russian military journalist Boris Rozhin is in italics
[ColonelCassad] An Analysis of Pentagon PSYOP Tactics: "Fewer Bots, More Advertising: The Evolution of the Pentagon's Online PSYOP."
The story begins with the Trans-Regional Web Initiative (TRWI), a US Special Operations Command program launched in 2008. TRWI created the first generation of foreign-language websites targeting external audiences. These early sites openly acknowledged their support from the US military. Congress formally defunded the program in 2014. After funding ceased, Al-shorfa became Al-Mashareq. Mawtani became Diyaruna. Central Asia Online split into regional publications: Caravanserai, Salaam Times, and Pakistan Forward. These second-generation sites continued to acknowledge CENTCOM sponsorship, but the mention became less prominent.
In April 2026, Biddle reported on Al-Fassel and Pishtaz News, Arabic- and Persian-language outlets that published a new standard notification of US government funding, identifying the sites as "a product of an international media organization funded by the United States government"—without mentioning CENTCOM . This network appears to represent the third generation of semi-open, TRWI-style propaganda sites, or the "gc_ generation." The most significant change from the 2022 operation is how the websites interact with people. Earlier projects relied on fake accounts and insincere social media behavior—and in most cases failed to attract a real audience. The average engagement rate was negligible. The fake accounts often talked to themselves or almost no one (hence the title of the report).
The market labor of living bots will eventually be almost completely replaced by learning neural networks that imitate human communication. Also continuing the topic. Existing military structures often lack robust operational mechanisms to detect or counter continuous cognitive campaigns. Although information operations are integrated into tactical and operational planning, they are often viewed as episodic actions with specific results, rather than as continuous defensive and offensive measures.
Strategists often separate cyber, psychological operations, and public relations. This separation creates friction that malicious actors can easily exploit. To address this operational asymmetry, the entire PSYOP framework must be adapted to include preventive measures against cognitive threats. This modernization could include several key elements:
1. Clarified definition of the cognitive sphere (doctrine): Doctrine requires revision to recognize the cognitive domain as an independent domain of warfare, parallel to land, air, sea, space, and cyberspace. Integrating cognitive security as a stable Phase 0 operation limits the adversary's ability to shape the operational environment.
2. Permanent Organizational Structures (Organization and Personnel): The transition from temporary information groups to permanent, specialized organizational structures can open new opportunities for monitoring and countering hostile cognitive campaigns. Such organizations, in addition to traditional cybersecurity, psychological operations, and public affairs specialists, can include data analysts, cognitive psychologists, and cultural analysts.
3. Technologically Advanced Materiel Solutions: Countering AI-enabled cognitive attacks requires the acquisition and implementation of advanced detection tools. Software suites must be capable of identifying synthetic media, algorithmic manipulation, and coordinated inauthentic behavior in real time.
4. Development of training and leadership models (Training and Leadership): Preparing troops for confrontation in the cognitive sphere will require updating training to include realistic simulations of targeted cognitive attacks. Developing cognitive resilience in commanders and soldiers is crucial to ensuring objective decision-making under constant psychological pressure.
De Cluzel's ideas are gradually being integrated into the information and psychological warfare structures of NATO countries.They correctly point out the threat of streaming information content produced using neural networks with the need to detect it online.
Having suffered a series of setbacks, particularly in the Middle East, where the US lost the information war, the Pentagon and its affiliates will naturally draw conclusions and adapt their information-psychological and cognitive operations systems, actively implementing new technologies related to neural networks and de Cluzel's concept of cognitive warfare, which has long been funded by NATO leadership. We had something similar under Ilnitsky with his concept of "mental warfare," but after the change in leadership at the Ministry of Defense, nothing has been heard on this topic.