There is a new global war raging, and the West is losing. It is not the war in Ukraine, though that is the most visible front. It is the fierce but largely unrecognized global war in the cognitive domain, where our enemies, particularly Russia and China, have gained the upper hand. And let us be crystal clear: Despite the Trump administration’s recent flip-flop, Russia and China are sworn enemies of the United States. The winner of this war will dominate the future competition for global power and influence.

Put simply, cognitive warfare is the strategic manipulation of information and redirection of perception for the purpose of waging war and achieving war goals. It is the source for understanding threats, the values worth defending, and the reason and the will to fight. Russia and China each dedicate substantial resources to cognitive warfare. Their budget allocation for cognitive warfare is estimated to be in the billions. By comparison, the West invests significantly less, other than techno-centric operations such as cybersecurity and cyber resilience.

Cognitive warfare encompasses operations that affect the way conflict is perceived. Its key premise is that wars are ultimately won or lost in the human mind. Populations will endure hardship and deprivation when they perceive mass injustice. Inferior forces will fight against impossible odds in support of strongly held beliefs. People, and armies, can undergo 180-degree changes in opinion when their perceptions change. Cognitive warfare includes misinformation and disinformation operations, influence operations and narrative operations.

Russia and China wage cognitive warfare relentlessly and with ever greater skill and effectiveness, united in their “no-limits” hatred of Western and particularly U.S. dominance, while flooding the zone with strategic narratives that position them as the “good guys.” Note China’s success at claiming the higher moral ground with its narrative proclaiming a “common destiny for all mankind,” and the win-win benefits of the Belt and Road Initiative. Or Russia’s claim to be the guardian of traditional, conservative values while demanding respect for its dominance over its neighbors.

The common thread of our enemies’ efforts in the cognitive domain is the enduring injustice of Western colonialism and the need for a diminished West in a multipolar world. These meretricious narratives play well throughout the Global South. One need only note the widening acceptance of the absurd lie that Ukraine is at fault for the unprovoked Russian invasion of its land or that NATO has been the historical aggressor. Or the growing popularity of the BRICS organization as the alternative to Western dominance.

The West has potentially powerful weapons and indeed won the great cognitive war of the 20th century when all the elements of national strength — diplomatic, informational, military and economic — were aligned in pursuit of the triumph of democracy and free markets. That was the greatest cognitive victory of our lifetimes; it brought down the Soviet empire, its satellite communist states and Marxist ideology. But today, the West is in cognitive paralysis, hobbled by bureaucratic inertia, toxic in-fighting, anachronistic legal and ethical constraints, and a crippling fear of escalation.

The willful reluctance of Western policymakers to recognize the importance of cognitive warfare carries the risk of irreversible losses in power and influence worldwide, the key factors that determine strategic outcomes in global competition. Their absence empowers and emboldens Russia and China.

Some Western nations recognize the importance of cognitive warfare and have policies, practices and even institutions to compete in the cognitive space. Sweden recently established a psychological defense agency; France created Viginum in the office of the president; and the Nordic and Baltic countries have embraced the concept of total defense. However, even these are limited primarily to defensive operations such as detection, exposure and resilience. The offensive toolbox is empty.

Sadly, the United States, though at the forefront throughout the Cold War, has lost the edge in cognitive warfare. The recent elimination of the State Department’s Global Engagement Center, the reckless dismantling of the United States Agency for International Development, the gutting of Voice of America and Radio Free Asia, and the habitual relegation of information warfare to an annex in Department of Defense war planning, which offers no military career path, combine to deprive the United States of the most potent tools of cognitive warfare. The alleged suspension of information operations aimed at Russia and growing mistrust between the United States and its European allies open wide the aperture for foreign information and influence warfare.

These are self-inflicted wounds. All that remain to exert influence and power are military threats and economic sanctions. Russia and China both know that the military threats are hollow. Both have taken the necessary steps to insulate themselves from the effects of Western economic sanctions and have effectively countered the measures on which the West has staked its security.

Only a paradigm shift can disrupt this careless march toward defeat. The notion that China and Russia are just competitors is quaint but wrong. They are enemies intent on overthrowing the Western-embraced, liberal, rules-based global order. The credulous faith that these superpowers will voluntarily settle for some form of peaceful coexistence, if only they are sufficiently propitiated with concessions, is naive and dangerous. If the West wishes to protect the values it cherishes, it must fight for them. It must seize the offensive.

Cognitive warfare is real warfare. Winning or losing matters. Absent understanding of the threat, of the values that need defending, and of the underlying reason and will to fight, the most advanced artificial intelligence will not save the day.

If the West loses the competition for cognitive dominance, neither firepower nor technology will be able to prevent its authoritarian enemies — Russia and China — from prevailing in this war.

Michael Miklaucic is a former senior fellow at National Defense University and editor-in-chief emeritus of the national and international security affairs journal PRISM. He is currently lecturer at the University of Chicago and professor of security studies at the University of Sao Paulo in Brazil. He wrote this column for the Chicago Tribune.

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Today is Saturday, April 5, the 95th day of 2025. There are 270 days left in the year.

Today in history:

On April 5, 1933, as part of his New Deal programs, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed an executive order establishing the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), a Depression-era work relief program for single men aged 18-25; the program employed more than 2.5 million men for federal conservation and safety projects over its nine-year history.

Also on this date:

In 1614, Pocahontas, the daughter of Tsenacommacah chief Powhatan, married Englishman John Rolfe, a widower, in the Virginia Colony.

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Today in History: April 4, Martin Luther King Jr. assassinated in Memphis

Today in History: April 3, Unabomber arrested in Montana

Today in History: April 2, Pope John Paul II dies at 84

Today in History: April 1, US forces invade Okinawa during World War II

Today in History: March 31, Bruce Lee’s son accidentally shot to death on movie set

In 1764, the British Parliament passed the American Revenue Act of 1764, also known as the Sugar Act.

In 1887, in Tuscumbia, Alabama, teacher Anne Sullivan achieved a breakthrough as her 6-year-old deaf-blind pupil, Helen Keller, learned the meaning of the word “water” as spelled out in the Manual Alphabet.

In 1951, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were sentenced to death following their conviction in New York on charges of conspiring to commit espionage for the Soviet Union. (They were executed in June 1953.)

In 1986, two American servicemen and a Turkish woman were killed in the bombing of a West Berlin discotheque, an incident that prompted a U.S. air raid on Libya nine days later.

In 1991, former Sen. John Tower, R-Texas, his daughter Marian and 21 other people were killed in a commuter plane crash near Brunswick, Georgia.

In 1994, Nirvana lead singer Kurt Cobain died by suicide in his Seattle, Washington home at age 27.

In 2010, a coal dust explosion at the Upper Big Branch mine near Charleston, West Virginia, killed 29 workers.

Today’s Birthdays:

Actor Michael Moriarty is 84.
Actor Max Gail is 82.
Singer Agnetha Fältskog (ABBA) is 75.
Rapper-actor Christopher “Kid” Reid (Kid ’n Play) is 60.
Rock musician Mike McCready (Pearl Jam) is 59.
Country musician Pat Green is 53.
Musician-producer Pharrell Williams is 52.
Rapper-producer Juicy J is 50.
Actor Sterling K. Brown is 49.
Actor Hayley Atwell is 43.
Actor Lily James is 36.

ELMONT, N.Y. – Losses can be costly for multiple reasons. For the Minnesota Wild, this one was costly for, roughly, every reason.

In desperate need of a feel-good win, of standings points and of elusive good health, Minnesota got none of the three on Friday night in the New York City suburbs, watching a second-period lead disappear quickly in a 3-1 loss to the New York Islanders.

Along the way, they suffered what appeared to be another costly injury, as defenseman Jake Middleton left the game following a scary play in the second period and did not return. And with one regulation win in their last seven games (1-4-2), the Wild are seeing a challenger for their once-secure playoff position creeping ever closer in the Western Conference standings.

Minnesota got a second-period goal from Mats Zuccarello and a 24-save performance from Filip Gustavsson but will head home with a 0-1-2 record on its three-game East Coast road trip.

More concerning for the Wild’s life beyond the regular season is their lead on Calgary for the final Western Conference playoff spot has shrunk to just five points, and the Flames have two games in hand on Minnesota. The Wild play their next road game in Calgary on April 11.

Noah Dobson had a goal and an assist for the Islanders, who had lost their last seven games to the Wild and had never previously beaten Minnesota at UBS Arena since the building opened in 2021.

Both teams killed penalties in the scoreless first period. The Islanders own the NHL’s worst power play and did not manage a man-advantage shot, putting just four shots on goal in the first. Minnesota pelted New York goalie Ilya Sorokin with 11 shots in the period but could not break through.

Zuccarello opened the scoring early in the second, whacking at a puck from behind the goal line, and seeing the shot glance off Sorokin’s helmet and into the net. The lead lasted all of 36 seconds, as Casey Cizikas deflected a Dobson shot that changed directions on Gustavsson and was past the goalie before he could react.

The Islanders took the lead a short time later on a kind of “own goal” when Simon Holmstrom’s backhander from the side of the net deflected off Wild forward Freddy Gaudreau’s stick and over the goal line.

Minnesota’s second power play of the game came at considerable cost after the Islanders’ Bo Horvat gave Middleton a push from behind while chasing a loose puck. Middleton went headfirst into the end boards and had to be helped from the ice. Horvat was given two minutes for boarding on the play.

The Wild were held without a shot on the ensuing power play, and got caught in their own zone for an extended shift later in the second but got to the second intermission trailing by just one goal.

When Wild forward Yakov Trenin went to the penalty box early in the third period, the Islanders used the man advantage to double their lead, when Dobson blasted a long-range shot past Gustavsson’s glove.

Sorokin finished with 27 saves for the Islanders, who had gone winless in their previous six games.

For the Wild, defenseman Declan Chisholm and forward Brendan Gaunce were healthy scratches. Among the Islanders scratches were defenseman Scott Perunovich, the Hibbing, Minn., native who won a pair of NCAA titles and the 2020 Hobey Baker Award at Minnesota Duluth.

Down to just five games remaining in the regular season, the Wild will play the next two at home, starting on Sunday when the Dallas Stars make their final visit before the playoffs. It is a 2 p.m. CT opening faceoff at Xcel Energy Center.

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By MICHAEL R. BLOOD and AMY TAXIN, Associated Press

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Los Angeles County has reached a $4 billion agreement to settle nearly 7,000 claims of sexual abuse in juvenile facilities since 1959, officials said Friday.

The agreement, which still needs approval from the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, far surpasses a $2.6 billion settlement reached in 2022 with Boy Scouts of America that was the largest aggregate sexual abuse settlement in U.S. history at the time.

“On behalf of the County, I apologize wholeheartedly to everyone who was harmed by these reprehensible acts,” Fesia Davenport, the county’s chief executive, said in a statement.

The agreement would settle lawsuits filed by thousands of people who alleged they were mistreated and sexually abused in foster care and juvenile detention facilities in Los Angeles County. The plaintiffs were able to sue because of a California law that took effect in 2020 and suspended the statute of limitations for childhood sex abuse victims to bring cases for three years.

Many of the claims involved the MacLaren Children’s Center, which was closed in 2003. The facility, which was intended to be a safe space for children awaiting placement in foster homes, opened in 1961 and was overseen by probation officials until it was placed under the county’s Department of Children and Family Services in 1976.

One man said he was sexually abused by a physician at the facility when he was 8 years old, while another said he was assaulted by a male staff member in a bathroom when he was 5. Children were routinely placed in solitary confinement, drugged and restrained in chairs at the facility, according to court papers filed by plaintiffs.

“It is bittersweet for the survivors, because nothing is ever going to take away what was done to them, and how badly their lives were altered and how much they have suffered,” said Adam Slater, one of the plaintiffs’ attorneys. “However, the settlement hopefully gives them some measure of justice and provides them with some measure of closure.”

Other private and public entities have been rocked by allegations of wide-ranging abuse and subsequent settlements.

The 2022 settlement by Boy Scouts of America, which recently renamed itself Scouting America, involved more than 80,000 men who said they were molested as children by scouting leaders and others.

And last year the Archdiocese of Los Angeles agreed to pay $800 million to victims of clergy sexual abuse, bringing the total payout to more than $1.5 billion.

Disclosure of the massive tentative payout by Los Angeles County comes at a time when the nation’s largest county — home to about 10 million residents — is facing a tightening bind of financial obligations on its $49 billion annual budget. Officials fear hundreds of millions of dollars for public services could vanish in Trump administration cutbacks, while the county has seen additional costs from January’s historic wildfires as it also deals with an ongoing homeless crisis.

Davenport recently said the county is facing a “large amount of uncertainty” with its budget — some agencies are largely funded by federal dollars.

The proposed agreement includes creating a countywide hotline for reporting child sexual abuse allegations against employees and developing a system to expedite investigations, officials said.

“By balancing justice for the victims with a commitment to reform, this resolution ensures both acknowledgment of past wrongs and a pathway to a safer, more accountable future,” Patrick McNicholas, one of the plaintiffs’ attorneys, said in a statement.

The county’s claims board will consider the proposed settlement Monday. If approved, it would be considered by the Board of Supervisors on April 29.

___

Taxin reported from Santa Ana, California. Associated Press writer Olga R. Rodríguez in San Francisco contributed.