“To capture the enemy's entire army is better than to destroy it; to take intact a regiment, a company, or a squad is better than to destroy them. For to win one hundred victories in one hundred battles is not the supreme of excellence. To subdue the enemy without fighting is the supreme excellence."
― Sun Tzu, The Art of War
As this timeless wisdom from ancient China illustrates, psychological operations have long been recognized as an essential component of a comprehensive strategy of war. Long before the first rounds go downrange the battle of the mind has already begun. Kinetic warfare is but the final stage of a cascade of events that begin in the deepest recesses of the subconscious.
In order to better illustrate the ubiquitous nature of this let me share a few personal stories from my time in the Marine Corps. Direct experience is always a better teacher than abstract concepts.
Having graduated from my MOS school at Quantico (Marine Corps Computer Sciences School) I landed next in the sands of the remote deserts of Saudi Arabia for Desert Shield. According to the doctrine of "combined arms" PsyOps were to be tested live on the battlefield as part of a comprehensive capability. Perhaps a specific example will help to illustrate what that means.
One day my Gunny says to me "Kelly, grab your gear. We need you to go with this Marine to make sure the GPS is working." We had been testing a new GPS capability that allowed forward recon units to send their data back to a central system over packet radio modem. After a long drive in a humvee across the open desert we parked and got out on foot. I had no idea where we were but the guy I was with did and so I followed closely and kept my mouth shut. Eventually as we came up a rise he told me we had to low crawl and so I got down and we slithered about 100 meters to the top of the rise. When we got to the peak I could see an Iraqi position way off in the distance and my new combat buddy was already setting up with his range finder and PRC-77 radio. After a few minutes we were entering data on the laptop and he paused and said "Check this shit out....we call it the shake and bake".
About two minutes later I see two f18 hornets coming in on the Iraqi position and I can see them start to run for their trenches. The first drop was conventional high explosive and anyone that didn't make it to cover was vaporized. I was like "yeah, that's going to leave a mark" and my buddy said "wait for it..." Soon after another pair of f18s come in and drop napalm down the trench line and it filled the trenches with a blazing inferno cooking everything and everyone. It was the most hellish scene I had ever witnessed. I understood immediately the PsyOp aspect of it and could understand the feeling of utter helplessness those Iraqis must have. The HE/napalm cycle was repeated three more times and when it was done there wasn't a single person left living. I later found out that this type of attack had been developed to induce the maximum psychological impact with input from the Army PsyOps units.
The leaflets we dropped on their positions encouraging them to surrender were also very effective. They surrendered in droves and would risk their lives crossing a minefield to get away from their units.
The rest is history as they say. PsyOps had managed to cement its role in US warfighting.
In 1992 the CIA had run a very effective PsyOp campaign in Haiti to change out their puppet for the next model. This caused something of a genocide in Haiti as the political winds shifted. Those who found themselves out of favor fled for their lives and a Haitian exodus led to a major humanitarian crisis. The US decided to interdict them at sea and hold them at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base until someone could figure out what to do with them.
I found myself in the middle of it all and tasked to design the data processing systems that would run the show. It was a joint operation (JTF) between every branch of the military and numerous civilian agencies such as INS (now known as ICE), CRS, and others. The political jousting between agencies quickly led to chaos and the mission objectives were mostly forgotten. Given the nature of my job I had a very high level view of the operation and it was breaking my heart to witness the human tragedy that came about because of political bullshit. The migrants were coming in at a rate of several thousand a day and we were only processing them out at a rate of about 300 per week. It didn't take long for the camps to be filled way beyond capacity and conditions degraded to slum status.
To make matters worse within the camps were a few agitators that had managed to rile everyone up and cause all sorts of other mischief. Every one of these bad apples were self declared "Voodoo Priests". They took advantage of a cultural belief system to manipulate others to serve them. They had young girls working as prostitutes in the camps and many men giving them their rations. All for fear of what kind of curse might befall them if they didn't comply. It was sad and a type of PsyOp in and of itself.
It didn't take long until riots broke out and one morning I look out over the camps and all the tents had been torn down in protest. The Commanding General of the operation realized something had to be done so he called a meeting with the PsyOp unit (they called themselves "MIST" because it had a nicer sound to it). Around ten in the morning a heavy rain came in and quickly cleared leaving all the camps a steaming hot mess under the tropical sun. That afternoon a helicopter dropped leaflets explaining we were doing everything we could but that nothing was going to improve unless we all worked together. The reverse side of the leaflet showed them where to find the instructions for erecting the tents that were included in a plastic slot on the inside of one of the door flaps. Thankfully this gambit worked and they began setting their tents back up and by nightfall it was done and those in the camps began asking themselves who the assholes were that suggested they tear them down in the first place.
Day by day I became more frustrated with the way the operation was being conducted. The Commander really had his hands tied with the civilian agencies and he was left with nothing more than his charm to compel compliance. I decided to give him some help in a way that could have gotten me in a lot of hot water but I had to take the chance given the stakes. I had been tasked with developing a database system to track everyone and everything and in the process of that had spoken to every single player in the operation. I therefore had a comprehensive view of what was happening that no one else did. I used that perspective to put together a proposal and then printed and bound numerous copies. Early the next day I snuck into the room where the staff meetings took place and placed a copy at each seat and left quiet as a mouse. Later in the day when the meeting commenced everyone began to file through my proposal and by the time the meeting was over it had been adopted with little question as to where it actually had come from. The next day I got the green light to train everyone on the new database system and within two weeks we were processing out faster than people were coming in. Within a month we had cleared the backlog and managed to get the operation under control.
A couple of years later I ended my enlistment and left military life. Living in the military bubble I had sort of missed how the news agencies in the US had began adopting what I knew to be military PsyOp tactics. I thought that surely it was coincidental but later realized that it was in fact our own government using our tax dollars to create a compliant populace. The attacks of 9/11 were the peak of this but was really their "bridge too far" moment. Whoever was responsible for that tragic day drastically underestimated the intelligence of the average person and set in motion their own demise. The wheels of justice turn slowly, but they do turn.