Photographic portrait of Sigmund Freud by Max Halberstadt in 1921 and signed by Freud – probably the most iconic image of Freud (public domain image)

(2) PSYCHOLOGICAL WARFARE

Psywar, psyops, military information support operations, political warfare, hearts and minds, shock and awe, show of force, propaganda, disinformation

All warfare is psychological warfare.

No, seriously.

Yes, I know the term psychological warfare is usually to connote means of targeting an adversary’s morale or collective psyche – whether of their military, civilian population, or political state (or any part or combination of those) – apart from (or adjacent to) the use of military force.

However, war has always used psychological ‘force’  (and ‘space’ or ‘time’) – such as bluff, deception and intimidation for fear and shock – as much as physical force in combat from its very origin in prehistoric or primal warfare (to the extent we can infer it from observations of more contemporary tribal warfare) or even animal intra-species conflict.

After all, it’s best to reduce your enemy’s fighting power by reducing their cohesion, discipline, morale, resilience or resistance (or alternatively increase your own) – and better yet to avoid as much fighting (or as many casualties) as possible by causing them to break altogether into desertion, flight, retreat, rout or surrender (or alternatively mobilize your own forces against such things). In short, defeating the will of your enemy.

There’s Hannibal or the Mongols using deception or subtertuge to give the impression of forces as present or to inflate the apparent size of their forces. There’s the Mongols – quite the practitioners of psychological warfare – using the carrot of leniency and the stick of annihilation to encourage surrender. There’s the use of sirens on German Stuka aircraft in WW2 for their psychological effect (as well as other uses).

Of course, it’s not always about ‘negative’ impact, reducing or breaking your enemy. It can also be about ‘positive impact’, such as enlisting them to you – although that tends to involve the more usual usage of psychological warfare against their civilian populations or political states apart from or adjacent to the use of military force.

“Psychological warfare involves the planned use of propaganda, fear, and manipulation to influence the emotions, attitudes, and behavior of an opposition group, without relying on physical force. Its primary goal is to break an enemy’s will to fight, undermine morale, and cause confusion.”

Tactics of psychological warfare – particularly in the usual sense of not involving military force – include propaganda, disinformation or deception, demoralization and intimidation.

“The term is used to denote any action which is practiced mainly by psychological methods with the aim of evoking a planned psychological reaction in other people” – “various techniques aimed at influencing a target audience’s value system, belief system, emotions, motives, reasoning, or behavior.”

RATING:

S-TIER (GOD TIER)