Transcript A History of Psychological Warfare

A History of Psychological
Warfare
From Political Warfare to
Information Support
Prof. Philip M. Taylor
University of Leeds
As Old as War itself
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Sun Tsu (‘the acme of skill’)
Trojan Horse (Deception)
Walls of Jericho
Alexander the Great
Sack of Carthage (propaganda of the deed)
Caesar and his circuses (importance of
domestic morale)
More relevant now than ever
before
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The New Jericho: Panama, 1989
The Gulf War as catalyst
Kosovo: a sobering lesson
Propaganda of the Deed – September 11th
2001
• The ‘war’ against Terrorism
Evolution of Terminology
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Political Warfare
Psychological Warfare
Psychological Operations
Information Warfare
Information Operations
Information Support (UK)
Perception Management
It IS propaganda
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Black (Covert)
White (Overt)
Grey (Unknown)
Hence defined by source
Value neutral
Democratic values of propaganda
From combat propaganda to
strategic PSYOPs
• Soldier-to-soldier communication
• Total War and the importance of civilian
morale/support
• The Cold War as ‘a war of ideologies’
• Operations other than war in the 1990s
• Soldier-to-civilian communication
• Terrorism: a war against an idea/concept
World War One
• ‘The thing is to kill Germans’
• ‘The defilement of the human soul is worse
than killing’
• Not over by Xmas 1914: new weapons
needed
• Crewe House and ‘munitions of the mind’
against Austria-Hungary and Germany
WW1: consequences
• The importance of public opinion and the advent
of public diplomacy
• The arrival of new communications technologies
• Policy and Propaganda synergy and the tragedy of
Versailles
• The arrival of new, aggressive, ideologically
motivated regimes in Russia, Italy, Japan and
Germany.
World War Two: Total War, Total
Propaganda
• First RAF raid of the war was with leaflets!
(‘bullshit bombs’)
• Media access to the battlefield
• Ministry of Information and Political
Warfare Executive
• Psychological Warfare Division of SHAEF
• Deception and Operation Fortitude
WW2: consequences
• The ‘Strategy of Truth’
• The importance of credibility (and hence of
the BBC – but to how to get heard?)
• Policy and Propaganda synergy and the
tragedy of ‘Unconditional Surrender’
• The Ultra Secret vs. Political Warfare
Executive (joint military-civilian)
The Cold War
• Back into the shadows (KGB vs. CIA)
• Into the strategic domain (USIA, British
Council etc)
• Low Intensity Conflicts
• High-fidelity battles (e.g. space race,
Olympic Games)
• The Great Communicator & ‘Star Wars’
Vietnam and its antidotes
• ‘The Uncensored War’, ‘The first television
war’
• Decline of psyops
• The Falklands Factor
• The Gulf War of 1991 as catalyst
• The Revolution in Military Affairs
The Gulf War as catalyst
• US-led ‘Burning Hawk’
• 29 million leaflets for Iraqis in KTO
• 4 POG and 193rd PNG deployment of
leaflets, radio, loudspeakers and Commando
Solo
• 44% of Iraqi army deserted (60-80,000)
The changing role of the military
in the 1990s
• OOTWs in N. Iraq, Somalia, Bosnia, Haiti,
Kosovo 1999
• New types of deployments, new skills
required
• Revolution in Communications
technologies
• Democracies and non-democracies
Kosovo: WWW1
• Gulf War 2 without the ground war
• The arrival of the Internet and the mobile
phone
• Asymmetrical warfare and the importance
of propaganda (‘SOFTWAR’)
• Information Warfare and 103 million
leaflets
THE IMPORTANCE OF INFORMATION
TO THE MILITARY
Information In Warfare
Information Warfare
Intelligence
Influence Attitudes
Surveillance
Deny / Protect
Reconnaissance
Deceive
Weather
Exploit / Attack
Geographic
Other
Information Warfare
Influence Attitudes
‘Perception
Management’
Public Diplomacy
Private Diplomacy
PSYOPS
Media Relations
(PA/PI)
Education (‘soft
power’)
Counter Influence/
Propaganda
Deny/Protect
Deceive
Exploit/Attack
OPSEC
Spoofing
Ballistic
Information
Assurance
Deception
Electronic
Warfare
Imitation
CounterIntelligence
Computer
Network
Defence
Distortion
Computer
Network
Attack
EMP
Perception Management and the
‘war’ on terrorism
• PSYOPs deployed in Afghanistan
• Al Jazeera as the ‘new Baghdad loophole’
• Coalition information centres in London,
Washington and Islamabad
• ‘we are losing the war of words’ - is this a failure
of strategic information policy?
• Co-ordinate across the spectrum of
communications, from the tactical to the strategic,
and back again
Weapons of Mass
Communications – my questions
• Communications and information are to the
21st century what oil and coal were to the
20th
• is the ‘thing’ to kill terrorism?
• How to deter future terrorists?
• In for the long haul
• How long can the public stand for it?
Any questions from you?