Psychological WarfareLinebarger, Paul Myron Anthony
History
Psychological Warfare
Linebarger, Paul Myron Anthony
Psychological warfare
=Counterpropaganda.= Counterpropaganda could be listed as a limitation,
as the enemy combat strength is sized up in physical warfare. This,
however, is one of the points at which psychological warfare differs
from other forms. If the propaganda message is worth putting across, it
need not be geared to what the enemy is saying. Enemy propaganda should,
in well conducted operations, be taken into account only when it becomes
an asset. That is, the enemy need only be heeded when he tells a
whopping lie, or comes forth with a piece of hyprocrisy so offensive to
his own people that it needs little improvement to be adapted for
counterpropaganda. Most enemy themes are beyond reach, especially those
of inter-ideological warfare. The Nazis and Russians made the best
propaganda against each other when they got down to the basic
necessities of life, not when they were trying to weave finespun
theories about each other's way of thinking or of life. Refutation is a
joy; it is delightful to talk back. But the best propaganda is only
incidentally counterpropaganda. It uses enemy blunders and counteracts
enemy success by building up unrelated successes of its own.
This does not mean that propaganda analysis is not needed. Somewhere in
every psychological warfare unit there must be an intelligence group
servicing the operation. If, for example, the enemy has announced that
the candy your aviators are dropping is poisoned (and has proved it by
dropping some of "your" candy, made by his black-operations boys and
actually poisoned), there is no point in calling him a liar; you may not
know for some time whether poisoned candy has been dropped or not. If
the enemy commander has shown his troops photographs of prisoners whom
your side has taken and "murdered" (according to his well staged
photos), it is not a good idea to ask people to surrender without
sending along equally convincing pictures of well cared for prisoners.
If the enemy alleges that you and your allies are rioting in the streets
or stealing each other's womenfolk, or that one of you is doing all the
fighting while the other sits around in safe staging areas, it may be a
good idea to send along some leaflets showing inter-allied cooperation
on your side, or to run a few radio shows on the subject.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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