Psychological Warfare

Psychological Warfare is war propaganda directed at enemy audiences to induce surrender, insurrection, or disruption. It is most effective when based on military realities or likelihoods. It is intertwined with twentieth‐century mass media, which allows the dissemination and reception of information behind enemy lines through leaflets, radio, and television. Traditionally, one distinguishes among three kinds of psychological warfare: white, gray, and black. White propaganda openly admits origin, and is disseminated openly by clearly identifiable sources; gray indicates no source; black disguises its source or purports to come from somewhere other than its true source. Black propaganda trades in disinformation, that is, misinformation or untrue statements deliberately spread to sow confusion. Today, disinformation has eclipsed black propaganda as a technique of psychological warfare; it works because it plays on recipients' darkest suspicions: it trades in prejudice and bias.

Psychological warfare may be synonymous with the twentieth century, but it is hardly new to the conduct of warfare. The Chinese military specialist Sun Tzu noted in his fourth‐century B.C. Art of War that “to subdue the enemy without fighting is the acme of skill.” In 1400 B.C., Joshua used the techniques of psychological warfare when he marched around the city of Jericho seven times sounding his trumpet to intimidate the enemy. The role of deception in siege warfare is famously part of the Siege of Troy. Thanks to the wooden horse in which Greek soldiers were hidden, we consider the Trojan Horse synonymous with “Greeks bearing gifts.” In short, intelligent military commanders have frequently resorted to strategem, particularly in siege warfare, and this is part of what today we consider psychological warfare.

World War I saw the first use of modern propaganda techniques on a large scale. Woodrow Wilson used the tactics of white propaganda in promoting his Fourteen Points (1918) as a basis for ending the war. The enemy was depicted through atrocities propaganda, as the “Brutish Hun,” destroyer of civilization, an enemy who did not scruple to kill innocent women and children in the sinking of the Lusitania (1915). Civilians at home, and doughboys in the trenches, knew it was Germans who bombed the cathedral at Reims. Adolf Hitler paid careful attention to Allied propaganda successes in some of the shrewdest parts of his autobiography, Mein Kampf (1925–26).

World War II led to the advent of “psyops” as a distinct part of military operations and planning. Correctly understood, psychological warfare does not treat home morale or concern itself with public relations involving friendly countries. It is, rather, concerned with the enemy and enemy‐controlled countries. Military force (the alternative to psychological warfare) concerns itself with threats, promises, subversion, and destruction; psychological warfare trades in warnings, alternatives, compassion, and the presumptive surcease of strategic rather than terrorist bombings.

Arguments as to the effectiveness of psychological warfare in World War II turn on what role, if any, these techniques had in persuading the German soldier to surrender before 8 May 1945. Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower stressed the significance of psyops to modern warfare in an oft‐quoted statement in the spring of 1945: “Without doubt, psychological warfare has proved its right to a place of dignity in our military arsenal.” Most military historians recognize the import of this statement but feel that the doctrine of “Unconditional Surrender” fatally undermined the possibility of effective psyops in World War II by precluding the effective utilization of alternatives and compassion. One must conclude that we know an enormous amount about tricks and ruses (often concocted by brilliant practitioners) but very little about demonstrable impact.

The Korean War introduced a new sort of psyops, the concept of brainwashing, first mentioned in 1950, a translation of the Chinese term for “thought reform.” To brainwash is to change drastically someone's outlook. It involves convincing someone thoroughly, usually through nefarious means. Twenty‐one American prisoners of war refused repatriation in 1953; Cold War hysteria in America led many to believe that they were the victims of totalitarian practitioners with superhuman skills in indoctrination. Though the word brainwashing is part of everyday speech, today it is used to describe the techniques of those who create religious cults; the American military, after exhaustive analysis, concluded that in terms of troop morale, there was no such thing as brainwashing; instead, the problem had to do with a captured soldier's inner psychological strength or emotional vulnerability.

The Vietnam War made substantial—and notorious—use of psyops. Persons trained in civil and political affairs joined Special Operations Forces to bring about so‐called pacification, and to aid in the defection of the Viet Cong to the South Vietnamese side, all part of Civil Operations and Rural Development Support (CORDS). Certainly, psyops operations were mistrusted by conventional soldiers and their commanders, but Vietnam systematized the phrase coined by Gen. Sir Gerald Templer as the goal of British efforts to undermine guerrilla activity in Malaya in the 1950s, “the battle for hearts and minds”—surely the central concern of psychological warfare in all of its guises.

More recently, the Persian Gulf War (1991) made stunning use of disinformation as a tool of military policy, suggesting that future psyops will make the control of information a central concern. Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf was happy to let television commentators and newspaper correspondents repeat endlessly the inevitability of an assault on Kuwait City from the sea. Saddam Hussein and his advisers assumed this must be official doctrine and arranged their forces for such an eventuality. When this proved not the case, “the mother of all battles” came to a quick conclusion. Further, the advent of satellite television broadcasting, allowing CNN correspondent Peter Arnett to broadcast from the enemy's capital while the war progressed, suggests that psyops and information policy are more than ever subjects no modern military commander can ignore. Successes in deception may make fascinating reading, but the real success of psyops entails techniques more white than black in an effort “to subdue the enemy without fighting.”
[See also Bombing of Civilians; News Media, War, and the Military; Propaganda and Public Relations, Government.]

Bibliography

Harold D. Lasswell , Propaganda Technique in World War I, 1927; repr. 1971.
Daniel Lerner , Psychological Warfare Against Nazi Germany: The Sykewar Campaign, D‐Day to VE‐Day, 1949; repr. 1971.
Terrence H. Qualter , Propaganda and Psychological Warfare, 1962.
Philip M. Taylor , War and the Media: Propaganda and Persuasion in the Gulf War, 1992.
Philip M. Taylor , Munitions of the Mind: A History of Propaganda from the Ancient World to the Present Day, 1995.
Robert Cole , Propaganda in Twentieth Century War and Politics: An Annotated Bibliography, 1996.

David Culbert