Paul J. Balles looks at how the US armed forces are now using psychological warfare not only to influence foreign foes, such as in Afghanistan and Iraq, but also in within the USA itself. One big story of the last few weeks has the US military playing "mind games" with civilian leaders in order to get greater support for the war in Afghanistan. Sometimes these mind games have been called brainwashing. Another name for them is psyops or psychological operations. According to the US Department of Defense Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms, "Psychological operations are planned propaganda operations to convey selected information and indicators to foreign audiences to influence their emotions, motives, objective reasoning, and ultimately the behaviour of foreign governments, organizations, groups and individuals....Read MoreThursday, 17 March 2011
US Military Using Psychological Warfare on Americans
Paul J. Balles looks at how the US armed forces are now using psychological warfare not only to influence foreign foes, such as in Afghanistan and Iraq, but also in within the USA itself. One big story of the last few weeks has the US military playing "mind games" with civilian leaders in order to get greater support for the war in Afghanistan. Sometimes these mind games have been called brainwashing. Another name for them is psyops or psychological operations. According to the US Department of Defense Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms, "Psychological operations are planned propaganda operations to convey selected information and indicators to foreign audiences to influence their emotions, motives, objective reasoning, and ultimately the behaviour of foreign governments, organizations, groups and individuals....Read More