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Monday, 8 January 2024

PsyWar: A Short History of the Battle for the Mind

 What is Psychological Warfare?

Boneau defines Psychological Warfare (PsyWar) as a number of actions ranging from radio propaganda to torture, that require comprehensive information on targeted populations. In a document written in 1948, American ground forces defined “psychological warfare” as follows:

“It is based on moral and physical means different from those upon which orthodox military techniques are based on. Its purpose is: (a) To destroy the will and the fighting spirit of the enemy and avoid its allies’ support and, (b) To encourage our troops and our allies’ will of being victorious.”

PsyWar uses every possible weapon and tool to influence and impact the will of the enemy. Such “weapons” are labelled “psychological” because of their effect and not because of their own nature. This is the reason why, open propaganda (“white”), secret (“black”) or “grey” propaganda – subversion, sabotage, murders, special operations, guerrilla, espionage, political, economic and racial and ethnic pressures – are all considered useful PsyWar weapons.

To implement such programs, the intelligence services recruited specialists on behavioural sciences capable of inventing the “simple, clear and repetitive” white propaganda and black propaganda aimed at provoking “disorder, confusion and… terror” within the enemy forces.

We thus begin to fathom that the so-called “Arab Spring” of today did not just suddenly and spontaneously explode in 2011, but was rather hatched from an “egg” laid decades ago and brooded by the secret intelligence agencies...read more>>>>..