The Washington Post March 24, 2003
Propaganda Seen as Key For Military, World Opinion
Leaflet Drops Are Only Part Of U.S. Psychological Efforts
By Shankar Vedantam
Fighting war has always been as much about psychology as about military tactics, and skillful manipulation of minds and breathtaking leaps of exaggeration can be as deadly as a guided missile.
The leaflets that have fluttered down over Iraq telling soldiers to surrender to U.S. troops are only one element in a wide array of domestic, international and battlefield psychological operations now underway, say experts in the history of warfare and persuasion.
"Winning and losing a war is a matter of meeting expectations," said Anthony Pratkanis, a professor of psychology at the University of California at Santa Cruz and a co-author of "Age of Propaganda: The Everyday Use and Abuse of Persuasion." "So you can lose and win, and you can win and lose."
During World War II, for example, Nazi propaganda master Joseph Goebbels routinely prepared the country to expect much higher losses than were realistic, Pratkanis said. When fewer Germans were killed in any given battle, Goebbels would declare "victory."
Although such tactics can seem ludicrous in hindsight, they can be extremely effective in wartime, when fear and emotions allow expert communicators to shape opinions and influence behavior on both political and military fronts.
Experts generally give high marks to the way the U.S. military has showered Iraqi soldiers with reasons to surrender and tried to sow internal dissension among Iraqi leaders, especially in contrast with efforts to influence domestic and international opinion.
"War is fought not just with bullets and rifles and tanks, but with influence tactics and words and a communication environment," Pratkanis said. "The military has a very effective campaign going in Iraq. The bigger issue is, America is losing the communication war -- if you look at how Americans are viewed in other countries, it has never been lower."
Although some experts doubt the leaflets will be of much use against committed Iraqi soldiers, most agreed that they could not hurt and said such measures had essentially become standard military procedure since World War I.
During the Korean War, each side showered the other with leaflets. Notes dropped on North Korean forces suggested that they were being duped into fighting by the Soviet Union. In return, American forces received leaflets asking whether they really wanted to get killed fighting in a foreign civil war.
Leaflets play on soldiers' emotions and fears, and decrease the will to fight. Like other forms of propaganda, they use simple emotions to influence behavior powerfully. But the success of leaflets has been mixed.
Some studies in World War I showed that soldiers were more likely to respond to leaflets when they were presented as an official contract or a coupon. Pratkanis said that leaflets printed with gold braid and the promise that the bearer would be treated well and given a hot meal appeared to be more successful. Still, Clark McCauley, a psychologist at Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania, said leaflets were often ineffective against a moderately well-trained army.
"The chief reason that men fight and risk their lives in war is not to let their buddies down," McCauley said. For leaflets to be successful, "whole groups must decide to come forward at the same time. But it is dangerous for groups to come forward, because it takes only one person to betray the group to headquarters and get everyone shot."
In Iraq, several hundred soldiers have surrendered to U.S. troops, while some have offered fierce resistance. Iraq's better-trained Republican Guard has not yet been tested by the psychological measures.
Garth Jowett, a University of Houston communications expert and co-author of "Propaganda and Persuasion," said the "psy-ops" measures being used in Iraq were far superior to those used in the last Gulf War. "The Iraqis are in fact surrendering in large numbers," he said. "They are following the instructions on the leaflets to the book."
Some psychologists, such as Adrianne Aron, who practices in Berkeley, Calif., said the ultimate success of propaganda techniques depended on whether targets had other sources of information to counter the propaganda. McCauley added that cultural differences between the American and Iraqi sides could also play a role, because leafletting requires the Iraqis to trust the Americans.
Trust and suspicion may play especially important roles if any members of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's inner circle are thinking of abandoning him, as the Pentagon has suggested. The Iraqi president has a history of killing people suspected of disloyalty -- meaning that disaffected members of his inner circle will not be easily tempted to plot against him. But even if no such disloyalty exists, the mere claim could be a potent tactic, several psychologists said.
Military planners trying to exploit emotional weaknesses among Iraqi soldiers and leaders are also aware that the Iraqis are likely looking for American vulnerabilities.
"I have this nagging fear as a Vietnam veteran of loss of public support," said retired Lt. Col. Piers Wood , a visiting senior fellow at GlobalSecurity.Org, a local think tank. "Americans don't have the stomach for large casualties. There's always the possibility of a train wreck. We can lose 500 people in an afternoon and still win the war, but the American public will think we have lost."
Of course, the administration's ability to influence American opinion can change how reverses are perceived, several psychologists said. Although Americans tend to think that propaganda is used only by other countries, or by their nation against others, Jowett said that running a modern administration requires routine manipulation and spin -- the basic tools of propaganda.
"All institutions, governments and non-governments, manipulate the truth for their institutional reasons, just as people do for their individual reasons," said Jay Seitz, a psychologist at the City University of New York who studies aspects of propaganda in wartime. "Propaganda serves covert uses -- you want to neutralize discussion, you want everybody to be on the same page and not question anything."
Copyright © 2003, The Washington Post Company
