This Is The Invisible War We Are All Losing, Daniel Iriarte Explains

There was a time when war was easy to recognise — steel met steel, tanks clashed, and the battlefield could be marked on a map. But as host Qais Alamdar opened the latest episode of The Intelligence Spotlight, he reminded listeners that war today has moved into far quieter places: our screens, our feeds, and our minds.

In this episode, Qais sat down with Daniel Iriarte, journalist, international analyst, and author of Cognitive Wars, to explore how disinformation has evolved into a new kind of warfare — one fought not for land, but for perception.

Iriarte described how his own understanding of this transformation began during the 2016 US election, when Russian interference campaigns exposed the enormous power of digital manipulation. What began as a journalistic investigation into online interference soon became an exploration of how information itself had been weaponised. “It’s not just propaganda anymore,” he explained. “It’s about turning ordinary people into active participants in spreading disinformation — without them even realising it.”

That distinction is central to what he calls cognitive warfare. Traditional propaganda, he noted, was largely passive: leaflets, posters or radio broadcasts that attempted to persuade. Cognitive warfare, however, seeks to convert audiences into amplifiers. It exploits emotion, bias and identity — transforming users into what Iriarte called “digital soldiers”.

The conversation turned to the emotional engineering behind online manipulation. Memes, Iriarte argued, are today’s psychological equivalent of wartime propaganda posters. “They look harmless, they make you laugh,” Qais added, “but they slowly shift what we see as acceptable.” Through humour, irony or outrage, they create social permission for ideas that would once have been rejected.

Both agreed that the heart of this battle lies in feeling rather than thinking. “When we are emotional,” Iriarte said, “our rational defences are lower. That’s when manipulation works best.” He pointed to examples ranging from conspiracy theories about the US election to disinformation campaigns targeting Ukraine’s reputation, showing how perception often outweighs facts.

The discussion also examined how artificial intelligence is changing the landscape. Deepfakes and AI-generated voices, like the fake Biden robocall earlier this year, have blurred the boundary between real and false. But Iriarte warned that the greater danger lies not in the technology itself, but in how many people are willing to believe. “The problem isn’t how sophisticated the fake is,” he said. “It’s how receptive we are to it.”

Looking at global examples, he highlighted China’s use of AI to monitor and redirect online conversations, as well as the micro-targeting once practised by Cambridge Analytica. Yet there was cautious optimism too: societies such as Taiwan and Finland are proving that education and awareness can act as cognitive firewalls, building early resilience against manipulation.

The episode closed with Nietzsche’s haunting question from Iriarte’s book — “How much truth can a man bear?” — reminding listeners that even in an age of lies, truth still demands courage.

The full conversation is now available on YouTube and Spotify as part of The Intelligence Spotlight series.