Psychological warfare

“ There is neither victory nor defeat, only the endless seesaw of probable accomplishments or probable blunders. The honest psychological warfare operative will admit that he does not know where he is at any given moment, how far from his start, how near to his goal. Even with surrender of the enemy, propaganda cannot be judged to have met with complete failure or complete success, because propaganda is an interminable stream going on into international affairs and carrying over to the next war. ”

“ In each case it must be remembered, however, that psychological warfare is not a closed operation which can be conducted in private, but that—to be effective—psychological warfare output must be a part of the everyday living and fighting of the audiences to which it is directed. ”

“ In the medical field, psychological warfare can profit by the experiences of the medical corps. Whenever a given condition arises among troops on one side, comparable troops on the other are apt to be facing the same condition; if the Americans are bitten by insects, the same insects will bite the enemy, and enemy soldiers can be told how much better the American facilities are for insect repulsion. Finally, psychological warfare is intimately connected with the processing of prisoners of war and with the protection of one's own captured personnel. ”

“ Even though World War II erased most of the distinctions between military and civilian, leaving civilians in the vertical front line of all air war, psychological warfare gained. It became a more useful instrument for bettering war. Civilian interest in propaganda became no mere matter of emotional loyalty or philosophical preference, but a life-and-death matter to its recipients. After fire raids it would be a madman who would disregard an enemy bomb-warning leaflet without trying to figure out its application to himself and his children. ”

“ Plainly, psychological warfare operates against civilians with as much effect as it does against troops. Indeed, under the rather high standards set for modern warfare by The Hague and Geneva conventions, psychological warfare is left as one of the few completely legitimate weapons which can on occasion be directed against an exclusively civilian and noncombatant target. ”

“ Psychological warfare can also be counted on, tactically, to speed up the reduction of isolated enemy positions when these positions are clearly beyond hope of rescue. All the psychological warfare people need to do is to go in with map leaflets, surrender leaflets, loudspeakers and a near-by radio. The unit may not give in instantly, but the unit would be superhuman if it fought as well in the face of persuasion as it would have fought without psychological attack. ”

“ This mentality makes it possible for the ruler to control his own people enough to undertake "warfare psychologically waged." Without domestic fanaticism and domestic terror, governments have to fall back on "psychological warfare"—that is, the mere supplementing of politics and military operations by propaganda. It is vain to expect a free people in a free country to submit to such humiliating control, even for the purpose of winning a war. ”

“ These military establishments are better described under operations, since it was their functioning which defined—down to the limit of present-day experience—American military doctrine concerning the conduct of psychological warfare in theaters of war. In concluding the historical summary of psychological warfare, it is interesting to look at three major points which emerge plainly from the experience of World War II—points which either were not discovered in World War I, or else failed to make an impact on the minds of the responsible officials and informed citizens. ”

“ Furthermore, sound psychological warfare must take account of the fact that its ultimate aim is the successful ending of the war. For the end to be successful it must occur—the fighting must stop and the nations must enter into altered but renewedly peaceful relations. Propaganda that promises the enemy too much will alienate both allies and home public. But propaganda that promises bloody vengeance hurts possible peace movements in the enemy camp. ”

“ Naturally, no sane Theater commander would rely on psychological warfare alone for the accomplishment of a military result. It is possible, nevertheless, to allow for planned good luck—good luck which one has created with many months of hard work. When psychological warfare is used in conjunction with invasion, its planned use (to judge by the results found in World War II) might often justify commanders in using minimum rather than maximum allocations of troops for the protection of lines of communications against guerrilla or civilian attack. ”

“ Personnel was probably the biggest field problem of the entire war. Should psychological warfare be needed again, it will take careful culling of personnel to obtain the necessary staff and operators. The continuation of psychological warfare techniques, in part at least, by both civilian and military agencies in time of peace will, it may be hoped, provide the U.S. with a cadre for the next time. ”

“ The closer the psychological warfare officer is to the enemy, the more apt he is to think of the mission in terms of getting the enemy to come on over. Why quibble about a few phrases if the words will save lives, matériel, and time? Unfortunately the phrase that is successful against the enemy on the battle front may prove to be an irritant to the home public, with the sure consequence that the enemy will pick it up and send it back to do harm. Similarly, home-front propaganda can get out to do the theaters of operation harm: "Do your utmost—save lard!" sounds silly to men in combat areas. ”

“ It is a valuable auxiliary to modern warfare and a useful concomitant to modern strategy. If a particular strategic policy is sanely and effectively devised as a feasible deterrent to war, the PsyWar procedures supporting that strategy will contribute to the prevention of war. Psychological warfare represents a recognition and acceptance in the military and strategic field of skills which grow about us every day. ”

“ Psychological warfare involves exciting wit-sharpening work. It tends to attract quick-minded people—men full of ideas. I have talked about psychological warfare with all sorts of people, all the way from Mr. Mao Tse-tung in Yenan and Ambassador Joseph Davies in Washington to an engineer corporal in New Zealand and the latrine-coolie, second class, at our Chungking headquarters. I have seen one New York lawyer get mentally befuddled and another New York lawyer provide the solution, and have seen Pulitzer Prize winners run out of ideas only to have the stenographers supply them. ”

“ Warfare as a whole is traditionally well defined, and psychological warfare can be understood only in relation to the whole process. It is no mere tool, to be used on special occasion. It has become a pervasive element in the military and security situation of every power on earth.
Psychological warfare is a part of war. The simplest, plainest thing which can be said of war—any sort of war, anywhere, anytime—is that it is an official fight between men. Combat, killing, and even large-scale group struggle are known elsewhere in the animal kingdom, but war is not. All sorts of creatures fight ”

“ The psychological warfare operator can usually count on two basic interests of his listener. In the field he can be sure that the enemy troops are interested in themselves. In the enemy homeland he can be sure that the civilians are interested in their enemy—himself. He has therefore a certain leeway in which he can be sure of doing no harm, and may accomplish good, if he confines his propaganda to simple, factual and plainly honest statements on these subjects. ”

“ Another significant connection between politics and propaganda is found in definition of the nature of the enemy. For combat operations, it is easy (most of the time) to tell who the enemy is; he is the man with the other uniform, the foreign language, the funny color or physique. For psychological operations, it is not that easy. The sound psychological warfare operator will try to get enemy troops to believing that the enemy is not themselves but somebody else—the King, the Führer, the élite troops, the capitalists. He creates a situation in which he can say, "We're not fighting you." ”

“ Psychological warfare does not fit readily into familiar concepts of war. Military science owes much of its precision and definiteness to its dealing with a well defined subject, the application of organized lawful violence. The officer or soldier can usually undertake his task of applying mass violence without having to determine upon the enemy. The opening of war, recognition of neutrals, the listing of enemies, proclamation of peace—such problems are considered political, and outside the responsibility of the soldier. ”

“ Historic Examples of Psychological Warfare
Psychological warfare is waged before, during, and after war; it is not waged against the opposing psychological warfare operators; it is not controlled by the laws, usages, and customs of war; and it cannot be defined in terms of terrain, order of battle, or named engagements. It is a continuous process. Success or failure is often known only months or years after the execution of the operation. Yet success, though incalculable, can be overwhelming; and failure, though undetectable, can be mortal. ”

“ The morale services lost the opportunity to ram home to their G.I.-plus-foreign audience some of the more effective points of American psychological warfare, but they gained as propagandists by not admitting, even to themselves, that they were propagandists. Since the United States has no serious inward psychological cleavages, the general morale services function coordinated automatically with the psychological warfare function simply because both were produced by disciplined, patriotic Americans. ”

“ The new psychological warfare, a cause as well as a means of World War II, arose from the subjection of other considerations to propaganda. The propaganda addict takes everything with a ton of salt; what he does believe is lost in what he doesn't believe. The ordinary controls of civilized life—regard for truth, regard for law, respect for neighbors, obedience to good manners, love of God—cease to operate effectively, because the propaganda-dizzy man sees in everything its propaganda content and nothing else. ”

“ What can psychology do for warfare?
In the first place, the psychologist can bring to the attention of the soldier those elements of the human mind which are usually kept out of sight. He can show how to convert lust into resentment, individual resourcefulness into mass cowardice, friction into distrust, prejudice into fury. ”

“ Psychological warfare seeks to win military gains without military force. In some periods of history the use of psychological warfare has been considered unsportsmanlike.12 It is natural for the skilled soldier to rely on weapons rather than on words, and after World War I there was a considerable reluctance to look further into that weapon—propaganda—which Ludendorff himself considered to be the most formidable achievement of the Allies. ”

“ Warfare, being the more practical and plain subject, has a far older written history. This is especially the case since much of what is now called psychology was formerly studied under the heading of religion, ethics, literature, politics, or medicine. Modern psychological warfare has become self-conscious in using modern scientific psychology as a tool. ”

“ Military goals are often described by propagandists as attainable by means of propaganda alone, but there is no known example of psychological warfare having attained a strictly military goal without assistance by other means of warfare. ”

“ It is plain that whatever happens wars are fought to effect a psychological change in the antagonist. They are then fought for a psychological end unless they are wars of extermination. These are rare. The United States could not find a people on the face of the earth whose ideas and language were unknown to all Americans. ”

“ Advance psychological warfare plans for concrete military operations not only require a statement of the propaganda operation to be performed with facilities and personnel who are expected to remain static, but demand that the psychological warfare personnel, together with the needful gear, be moved right along with the advancing forces. ”

“ Tactical psychological warfare can be estimated, though to a limited extent, as part of a tactical potential of either the enemy or one's own side. Strategic propaganda can be planned and evaluated only in terms of the diffuse general situation, with the reasonable and fair expectation that if properly employed it will better the position of the user. ”

“ After war starts, we are capable of surprising the enemy with such things as incendiary raids, long-range bombers, and nuclear fission; but we cannot startle with the start of war. The United States is not now capable and—under the spirit of the Constitution, can never be capable—of surprising an enemy by the timing of aggression. If the same were true of all other nations, peace would seem much nearer than it does.
German psychological warfare, in the broad sense of warfare psychologically waged, depended more on political background than on psychological techniques. ”

“ The British required five years of honest effort, bitter wrangling, and positive political invention in order to devise a psychological warfare system sufficient to meet the needs of a great power at war. ”

“ In reality warfare by Mohammed's captains and successors demonstrated two principles of long-range psychological warfare which are still valid today:
A people can be converted from one faith to the other if given the choice between conversion and extermination, stubborn individuals being rooted out. ”