An Introduction to Psychological Warfare

Psychological warfare is the planned tactical use of propaganda, threats, and other non-combat techniques during wars, threats of war, or periods of geopolitical unrest to mislead, intimidate, demoralize, or otherwise influence the thinking or behavior of an enemy. While all nations employ it, the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) lists the tactical goals of psychological warfare (PSYWAR) or psychological operations (PSYOP) as: Assisting in overcoming an enemy’s will to fightSustaining the morale and winning the alliance of friendly groups in countries occupied by the enemyInfluencing the morale and attitudes of people in friendly and neutral countries toward the United States To achieve their objectives, the planners of psychological warfare campaigns first attempt to gain total knowledge of the beliefs, likes, dislikes, strengths, weaknesses, and vulnerabilities of the target population. According to the CIA, knowing what motivates the target is the key to a successful PSYOP.   A War of the Mind As a non-lethal effort to capture hearts and minds, psychological warfare typically employs  propaganda to influence the values, beliefs, emotions, reasoning, motives, or behavior of its targets. The targets of such propaganda campaigns can include governments, political organizations, advocacy groups, military personnel, and civilian individuals. Simply a form of  cleverly â€Å"weaponized† information, PSYOP propaganda may be disseminated in any or all of several ways: Face-to-face verbal communicationAudiovisual media, like television and moviesAudio-only media including shortwave radio broadcasts like those of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty or Radio HavanaPurely visual media, like leaflets, newspapers, books, magazines, or posters More important than how these weapons of propaganda are delivered is the message they carry and how well they influence or persuade the target audience.   Three Shades of Propaganda In his 1949 book, Psychological Warfare Against Nazi Germany, former OSS (now the CIA) operative Daniel Lerner details the U.S. militarys WWII Skyewar campaign. Lerner separates psychological warfare propaganda into three categories:   White propaganda: The information is truthful and only moderately biased. The source of the information is cited.Grey propaganda: The information is mostly truthful and contains no information that can be disproven. However, no sources are cited.Black propaganda: Literally â€Å"fake news,† the information is false or deceitful and is attributed to sources not responsible for its creation. While grey and black propaganda campaigns often have the most immediate impact, they also carry the greatest risk. Sooner or later, the target population identifies the information as being false, thus discrediting the source. As Lerner wrote, Credibility is a condition of persuasion. Before you can make a man do as you say, you must make him believe what you say.† PSYOP in Battle   On the actual battlefield, psychological warfare is used to obtain confessions, information, surrender, or defection by breaking the morale of enemy fighters.   Some typical tactics of battlefield PSYOP include:   Distribution of pamphlets or flyers encouraging the enemy to surrender and giving instructions on how to surrender safelyThe visual â€Å"shock and awe† of a massive attack employing vast numbers of troops or technologically advanced weaponsSleep deprivation through the continual projection of loud, annoying music or sounds toward enemy troopsThe threat, whether real or imaginary, of the use of chemical or biological weaponsRadio stations created to broadcast propagandaRandom use of snipers, booby traps, and improvised explosive devices (IEDs)â€Å"False flag† events: attacks or operations designed to convince the enemy that they were carried out by other nations or groups In all cases, the objective of battlefield psychological warfare is to destroy the morale of the enemy leading them to surrender or defect.   Early Psychological Warfare While it might sound like a modern invention, psychological warfare is as old as war itself. When soldiers the mighty Roman Legions rhythmically beat their swords against their shields they were employing a tactic of shock and awe designed to induce terror in their opponents.   In the 525 B.C. Battle of Peluseium, Persian forces held cats as hostages  in order to gain a psychological advantage over the Egyptians, who due to their religious beliefs, refused to harm cats.   To make the number of his troops seem larger than they actually were, 13th century A.D. leader of the Mongolian Empire Genghis Khan ordered each soldier to carry three lit torches at night. The Mighty Khan also designed arrows notched to whistle as they flew through the air, terrifying his enemies. And in perhaps the most extreme shock and awe tactic, Mongol armies would catapult severed human heads over the walls of enemy villages to frighten the residents. During the  American Revolution, British troops wore brightly colored uniforms in an attempt to intimidate the more plainly dressed troops of George Washington’s Continental Army. This, however, proved to be a fatal mistake as the bright red uniforms made easy targets for Washington’s even more demoralizing American snipers. Modern Psychological Warfare Modern psychological warfare tactics were first used  during World War I. Technological advances in electronic and print media made it easier for governments to distribute propaganda through mass-circulation newspapers. On the battlefield, advances in aviation made it possible to drop leaflets behind enemy lines and special non-lethal artillery rounds were designed to deliver propaganda. Postcards dropped over German trenches by British pilots bore notes supposedly handwritten by German prisoners extolling their humane treatment by their British captors. During  World War II, both Axis and Allied powers regularly used PSYOPS. Adolf Hitlers rise to power in Germany was driven largely by propaganda designed to discredit his political opponents. His furious speeches mustered national pride while convincing the people to blame others for Germany’s self-inflicted economic problems. Use of radio broadcast PSYOP reached a peak in World War II. Japans famous Tokyo Rose broadcast music with false information of Japanese military victories to discourage allied forces. Germany employed similar tactics through the radio broadcasts of Axis Sally.   However, in perhaps the most impactful PSYOP in WWII, American commanders orchestrating the leaking of false orders leading the German high command to believe the allied D-Day invasion would be launched on the beaches of Calais, rather than Normandy, France. The Cold War was all but ended when U.S. President Ronald Reagan publicly released detailed plans for a highly sophisticated â€Å"Star Wars† Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) anti-ballistic missile system capable of destroying Soviet nuclear missiles before they re-entered the atmosphere. Whether any of Reagan’s â€Å"Star Wars† systems could have really been built or not, Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev believed they could. Faced with the realization that the costs of countering U.S. advances in nuclear weapons systems could bankrupt his government, Gorbachev agreed to reopen dà ©tente-era negotiations resulting in lasting nuclear arms control treaties.   More recently, the United States responded to the September 11, 2001 terror attacks by launching the Iraq War with a massive â€Å"shock and awe† campaign intended to break the Iraqi army’s will to fight and to protect the country’s dictatorial leader Saddam Hussein. The U.S. invasion began on March 19, 2003, with two days of non-stop bombing of Iraq’s capital city of Baghdad. On April 5, U.S. and allied Coalition forces, facing only token opposition from Iraqi troops, took control of Baghdad. On April 14, less than a month after the shock and awe invasion began, the U.S. declared victory in the Iraq War.   In todays ongoing  War on Terror, the Jihadist terrorist organization ISIS uses social media websites and other online sources to conduct psychological campaigns designed to recruit followers and fighters from around the world.

Culture And Identity Of A Refugee Living Essay - 1613 Words

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In a diverse country such as Canada, it is important that professionals have the ability to learn from colleagues by sharing their values, customs and traditions. This enables us to work successfully with one another and incorporate certain attributes of specific cultures into our daily Establishing a relationship with a co-worker of a different culture and ethnicity is especially important in my field, as our organization employs various backgrounds that speak different languages and bring unique ways of doing things to the workplace. 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Attempting Things Achieving Various Goals â€Myassignmemthelp.Com

Question: Discuss About The Attempting Things Achieving Various Goals? Answer: Introducation It is identified that there are number of occasions in which self-efficacy has stopped an individual in attempting things or in achieving various goals. In order to minimize this type of situations it is quite important to improve self-efficacy. The ways that are helpful in improving self-efficacy are provided Accounting: Personal experience: It is identified that the feeling of mastery is generally endowed when an individual properly succeeds (Kennedy, 2013). Role modeling: Observing the success of others can be useful for motivating oneself for doing the same activities for accomplishing the same thing. Social persuasion: It is identified that encouragement from others helps in improving the self-efficacy if delivered properly by people (Fast, Burris Bartel, 2014). It is analyzed that discouragement minimizes self-efficacy. Managing reaction of the body: It is identified that psychology manifestation are quite motivating (Komarraju and Nadler, 2013). If an individual anticipate something, it is not important to focus on suppressing the feelings. References Fast, N. J., Burris, E. R., Bartel, C. A. (2014). Managing to stay in the dark: Managerial self-efficacy, ego defensiveness, and the aversion to employee voice.Academy of Management Journal,57(4), 1013-1034. Kennedy, E. P. (2013). The Nursing Competence Self-Efficacy Scale: An Instrument Development and Psychometric Assessment Study. Komarraju, M. and Nadler, D., 2013. Self-efficacy and academic achievement: Why do implicit beliefs, goals, and effort regulation matter?.Learning and Individual Differences, management.

Natural Environment and Forest Essay Example

Natural Environment and Forest Paper Nature is the greatest boon to the human society. It beautifies the land, stimulates the winds and preserves the ecological balance. The role of forests in Indian society is more important one. Kinds of forest: There are many kinds of forests. These are hill forest, evergreen forest, coniferous forest, deciduous forest and desert forest. The forest is based on natural landscape, climatic condition and ratio of the rainfall. Uses of the forest: Forest is the wealth of nation. Trees purify the air by inhaling oxides of carbon. During the heavy rain, trees prevent the soil erosion. It also controls the flood. Trees of mangrove forest are able to check the Tsunami waves. Apart from that, it serves the society by giving flowers, fruit, wood etc. , Havoc to the forest : (or) Deforested ion: Nowadays ratio of the rainfall decreases due to deforestation. The human nines destroy the forest and utilities its by products. The total forest area in India has been decreasing. As the trees are cut down, the peculiar species of animals are facing extinction. Hence deforestation should be avoided. Oaf forester ion: It means to plant more trees. Before cutting one tree, one sapling should be planted. One tree one family is the slogan but One family surrounded by many trees is the best slogan to be achieved. There is a forest policy in India. We will write a custom essay sample on Natural Environment and Forest specifically for you for only $16.38 $13.9/page Order now We will write a custom essay sample on Natural Environment and Forest specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer We will write a custom essay sample on Natural Environment and Forest specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer It has many aims to plant, develop and protect the forest. To develop this system we have to develop plantation, conserve the natural resources, and avoid destruction of the forest. Conclusion: unless we preserve the environment, it will not preserve the human society. The best remedy for deforestation is forestation. India is a land of natural resources.