Abstract
As cognitive warfare increasingly emerges as a distinct concept amid the convergence of artificial intelligence (AI) and neurotechnology, its conceptual differentiation from hybrid warfare raises ontological questions concerning subjectivity and security itself. This paper argues that attempts to conceptualize cognitive warfare ultimately expose the metaphysical limits of security by presupposing a stable and self-identical subject capable of securing its own mind. Drawing primarily on Slavoj Žižek’s Hegelian-Lacanian psychoanalytic framework while engaging post-structuralist insights, the paper critiques the Cartesian conception of the irreducible and indubitable self (the Strong “I”). It argues that the subject is instead ontologically incomplete (the Weak “I”), creating a fundamental dilemma: either cognitive warfare loses its conceptual distinctiveness, or subjectivity is displaced altogether through the transformation of the subject into a simulated object (the Hyperreal “I”), rendering the project of securing the mind self-undermining and ultimately self-consuming. To demonstrate the practical implications of this argument, the paper critically examines adaptive security and its practice of transmorphance (the capacity of a system to adapt to uncertainty while preserving its core identity) as an emerging systems-level approach to cognitive defense, arguing that this practice culminates in the transformation of the system into a Hyperreal “I,” thereby exposing the metaphysical limits of security itself.