Sara Russo says the most sophisticated influence never gives you a command. It shapes the environment so the decision feels like your own.
Sara is a PhD candidate in Defence and Security Studies in Rome, working with the Italian Ministry of Defence’s advanced studies school in collaboration with the University of Turin. She came in through international economics, management engineering, ten years of consultancy and an MBA. A StratCom (strategic communications) assignment during an Italian Navy exercise put her in front of narratives and influence in a live environment.
I stayed out of the cognitive warfare debate for a while. I would not treat it as a new discipline, because Boyd already named the mechanism in his strategic game of interaction and isolation. Then NATO’s 2025 cognitive warfare work put Boyd’s OODA loop on the page and described it linearly. Sitting out stopped being an option.
When Sara gave her definition, I heard the constraints-led approach. A coach shapes the environment so a skill emerges. Sara describes the same mechanism pointed at a different intent.
Networks and orientation
We worked through nodes, edges and centrality, and why the informal organization chart is the attack surface. Sara explains why removing a receptionist can produce consequences nobody modeled. She lays out the Italian Ministry of Defence three-layer model of influence, technology and a medical layer. I mapped those layers onto Boyd’s orientation: genetic heritage, cultural traditions and previous experience.
What the loop already contains
Sara says the loop as commonly presented is missing feedback and learning. I showed what the real loop already contains, including Boyd’s note that control is outside in while command is inside out. I also pointed to Karl Friston’s statement on this show that the real OODA loop is isomorphic with active inference, meaning the two share the same structure.
Neither of us conceded the opening question.
Who in your organization sits at the center of the network without showing up on the chart?
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Written by Ponch Rivera with AI assistance in production. The full conversation is in the player below.