Psychological operations of U.S. military services at the present stage

Military Thought, July, 2003 by A.G. Starunskiy

The situation in Iraq and around it has shown once again that the problem of identification of the main sources of military long- and short-term threats is still important for today's Russia. Its solution evidently depends largely on military-political, economic and military capabilities of the United States to attain the goals of its internal and external policy.

In this connection, the U.S. and British military operation in Iraq will remain for a long time yet a subject of detailed studies by Russian scholars. With the main conclusions are yet to be drawn, experts both in and outside Russia are summing up preliminary results of the second war in the Persian Gulf. For the time being, experts are focusing on general questions of the effectiveness of the offensive air operation and its effects on the region's stability and the world security system in general. Thereafter, we will discuss first of all the strategy and tactic of so-called "push-button warfare of the future" with Iraq as a proving ground where precision weapons and information and psychological operations were used on an unprecedented scale.

According to U.S. military and political leaders' views, organization and conduct of psychological operations in modern conditions is a mandatory element of military services participation in armed conflicts of various intensity, peacekeeping, humanitarian and counter-terrorism operations.

In accordance with documents containing regulations which are currently in effect in the U.S. military services, psychological operations * are programs to produce products and/or action programs that influence assessment, opinions and emotions of foreign audiences (governments, organizations, groups, and individuals) with the purpose of inducing their behavior to be favorable to objectives of the U.S. foreign policy and plans of appropriate commanders (persons in command) at strategic, operational and tactical levels.

Psychological operations are a component part of information operations and of the International Public Information [IPI] System. ** PsyOp activities are planned, organized and conducted before, during and after conflicts of various intensity. In the past, there were clear distinctions between three levels of conducting PsyOps: strategic, operational and tactical levels. There are no such deep distinctions at the moment because it is practically impossible to confine any information campaign to one specific location. A leaflet produced, for example, in Bosnia and Herzegovina can be shown to a night news reporter in the United States and instantly read in Sarajevo from TV screen.

Strategic psychological operations are defined as operations entailing global consequences and they are planned, organized and conducted at the governmental level. Psychological operations of the U.S. military services are conducted in support of strategic PsyOps and should guarantee correspondence of commanders' actions in theaters in peacetime and in wartime to the national plan of strategic PsyOps.

Operational psychological operations are conducted in entire theater of military operations to support appropriate commanders (persons in command) by joint PsyOps task forces or PsyOps elements. Operational PsyOps consist in communicating information to large audiences via television, radio, newspapers, magazine and leaflets. According to the concept of operational psychological operations of the U.S. military services, small forward-based PsyOp units of personnel and assets support the commanders in theater. Corresponding materials are prepared for them by the PsyOp Command at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. This concept, named Reachback, is realized by transmitting information via classified communications channels of the U.S. Army.

Tactical psychological operations consist in activities of forces and PsyOp assets in certain regions with focused psychological pressure on target audiences. Tactical PsyOps are conducted by small teams that disseminate leaflets, broadcast programs via local TV and radio facilities, use loudspeaker facilities and distribute billboards and banners.

The organization and conduct of psychological operations are in charge of the Unified Command of the U.S. military services Special Operations Command at Mac Dill Air Force base, North Carolina, the main component of which is the U.S. Army Special Operations Command (USSOC) at Fort Bragg, North Carolina administratively also subordinated to the Department of Defense. The USSOC has a command for communicating with civilian administrations and for psychological operations which has in its subordination regular PsyOp civil affairs units. The command has about 9,500 soldiers (including about 1,300 in regular forces and about 8,000 in organized reserves).

Every component of the U.S. military services has its own PsyOp personnel and assets whereas the main potential here (about 85 percent) is in the Army, the only component with regular PsyOp units in peacetime and big reserve PsyOp components of high mobilization readiness. The main regular element of the Army and at the same time the nucleus of the entire PsyOp structure of the U.S. military services is the 4th Psychological Operations Group (Airborne) at Ft. Bragg, NC. It consists of a headquarters element, a headquarters company and five PsyOp battalions: the 1st, 6th and 8th are regionally oriented battalions, the 9th is a tactical PsyOps battalion and the 3rd is a PsyOp dissemination battalion. The Group's total strength is 1,135.