Psychological warfare involves the planned use of propaganda and other psychological operations to influence the opinions, emotions, attitudes, and behavior of opposition groups. The targets of such propaganda campaigns can include governments, political organizations, advocacy groups, military personnel, and civilian individuals.
While all nations employ it, the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) lists the tactical goals of psychological warfare (PSYWAR) or psychological operations (PSYOP) as: Assisting in overcoming an enemy’s will to fight; Sustaining the morale and winning the alliance of friendly groups in countries occupied by the enemy; and Influencing the morale and attitudes of people in friendly and neutral countries toward the United States
Psychological warfare is ancient as warfare itself. Genghis Khan, leader of the Mongolian Empire in the 13th century AD believed that defeating the will of the enemy before having to attack and reaching a consented settlement was preferable to actually fighting. The Mongol generals demanded submission to the Khan, and threatened the initially captured villages with complete destruction if they refused to surrender. If they had to fight to take the settlement, the Mongol generals fulfilled their threats and massacred the survivors. Tales of the encroaching horde spread to the next villages and created an aura of insecurity that undermined the possibility of future resistance.
The Khan also employed tactics that made his numbers seem greater than they actually were. During night operations he ordered each soldier to light three torches at dusk to give the illusion of an overwhelming army and deceive and intimidate enemy scouts. He also sometimes had objects tied to the tails of his horses, so that riding on open and dry fields raised a cloud of dust that gave the enemy the impression of great numbers. His soldiers used arrows specially notched to whistle as they flew through the air, creating a terrifying noise. Another tactic favoured by the Mongols was catapulting severed human heads over city walls to frighten the inhabitants and spread disease in the besieged city’s closed confines.
According to Truthstream Media there is compelling evidence that since at least the early 1990s, the US military has been exploring the possibility of creating gigantic holograms that could be used for large-scale deception missions by special operations forces. They explain that these efforts were reported by the Washington Post in February 1999 who revealed that the US government was considering projecting a depiction of Allah over Baghdad as part of military action to destabilise Saddam’s regime in the first Gulf War. Truthstream Media also point out that over 20 years ago military research had already developed software able to replicate anyone’s voice using only a 10 minute sample of speech.
Psychological warfare is one of the elements of China’s Three warfare strategy. Chinese writings often refer to the “three warfares” (san zhan): public opinion warfare, psychological warfare, and legal warfare. Chinese analyses almost always link the three together, as they are seen as interrelated and mutually reinforcing. In order to be as effective as possible, both psychological warfare and legal warfare require the use of public opinion warfare. Public opinion warfare and legal warfare require psychological warfare guidance so that their targets and methods can be refined. Public opinion warfare and psychological warfare are, in turn, strengthened by information gleaned through legal warfare.
A s the U.S. military turns its attention from the Middle East to conflict with Russia and China, American war planners are advising that the United States greatly expand its own online “psychological operations” against Beijing. Military analyst David Maxwell, a former Special Ops soldier himself, advocated for a widespread culture war, which would include the Pentagon commissioning what he called “Taiwanese Tom Clancy” novels, intended to demonize China and demoralize its citizens, arguing that Washington should “weaponize” China’s one-child policy by bombarding Chinese people with stories of the wartime deaths of their only children, and therefore, their bloodline.
Governments also engage in wide-scale psychological operations (PSYOPs) to influence the behaviour, emotions and objective reasoning of their targets. “One of the most famous example was Colin Powell’s speech in the UN in 2003 where he presented false information about the so called weapons of mass destruction in Iraq which again lead to the disastrous war on Iraq. Norway’s war on Libya, which the whole Parliament supported, and which destroyed that country, was, as is well known, built on lies that Moammar al Gadaf was about to kill his own people,” writes Pål Steigan.
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