Psychological WarfareLinebarger, Paul Myron Anthony
History
Psychological Warfare
Linebarger, Paul Myron Anthony
Psychological warfare
This interest can be counted on throughout the war. The enemy is always
news. The wise enemy realizes this and keeps himself in the news,
trusting that in the wider understanding of himself, his politics and
culture there is the opening for a more favorable peace in the event of
defeat, or for a more docile submission in the event of his own victory.
Only unimportant enemies fail to become news. (Few Americans, for
example, realize that we were at war with Bulgaria in World War II. Had
the Bulgars developed sensational weapons, there would have been a
sudden upswing of interest in them. People would have realized that
Bulgaria, like Hungary and long-lost Avaria, was once a fierce Asiatic
state grafted onto the European system; the fabulous power of the Old
Bulgarian Empire would have become known, and the names of Krum, Symeon
and the Czar Samuel added to our calendar of hate. But Bulgaria never
did enough against the United States to count as an enemy, and even
succeeded, by diplomatic ineptitude, in getting into a state of war with
all the Axis Powers and all the United Nations simultaneously; Bulgaria
escaped the fame which goes with hostility. Contrast this with Japan:
thousands of Americans have learned Japanese; Japanese national
character is known to us; war has done in a five-year span what
education could not have accomplished in a generation.) The wise
propagandist can, when in doubt, play good music on the air, or he
can--with equal prudence--give the enemy his own elementary-school
history and language texts. These do no harm, and may achieve
something.
[Illustration: _Figure 28: Nostalgic Black._ Soldiers in all wars have
gotten homesick. Propaganda appeals to homesickness in many ways. One of
the simplest is the device shown in this German black leaflet, which
shows the husband turning off the alarm clock while the wife wakes up.
The printed message on the reverse makes out a discouraging case for the
soldier's opportunity to return home, pointing out that the GI in
Europe, even after victory, will face "that nasty jungle war ... in the
Far East." No identification of the leaflet is given.]
[Illustration: _Figure 29: Nostalgic White, Misfire._ Figure 30 was
carefully adapted to Japanese customs. The mere fact that the Americans
knew enough about Japan to celebrate a homey Japanese holiday was
probably enough to make the Japanese reader examine the leaflet
carefully. Here is a combined nostalgic and surrender leaflet showing
how surrender leads the Japanese soldier back to his wife and children.
The drawing looks American rather than Japanese, and it is not likely
that a genuine Japanese could have been made homesick by use of this
leaflet.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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