Psychological Operations and Political Warfare in Long-term Strategic Planning

Written by a group of distinguished security experts, these eight previously unpublished papers focus on the hostile actions of the Soviet Union against the West in the form of psychological operations, power politics, and blackmail. Addressing military professionals, strategists, and international security specialists, the contributors examine the most effective measures the United States and its allies can take to counteract such measures. This is particularly important in the Gorbachev era, when Western security is perhaps more than ever dependent upon knowledge of Soviet psychological operations and political warfare. The book also explores the background of East European resistance to Soviet dominance and the subsequent Soviet countermeasures. Wide-ranging in coverage, the papers explore psychological operation in the United States, Poland, West Germany, France, and Latin America.

Following the editor's introduction to psychological operations, the contributors address such topics as the history and future of U.S. military psychological operations, new thinking and influence activities in the Gorbachev era, terrorism as a political strategy, and contemporary insurgent political and psychological warfare. A case study of the Polish experience illustrates communist regimes' psychological warfare against their own societies. The remaining papers discuss psychological operations and political warfare in long-term U.S. strategic planning, the French experience with Soviet hostile actions, and the argument that psychological warfare is no longer necessary in the age of perestroika and glasnost. The contributors are united in their belief that psychological operations and political warfare will not be eliminated by the sweeping changes affecting the Soviet Union and that the Western democracies are by their very nature particularly vulnerable to such operations. However, given the changing nature of external threats to the West, the contributors call for a reevaluation of strategy in the area of psychological operations, political warfare, and low intensity conflict.

JANOS RADVANYI is Director of the Center for International Security and Strategic Studies at Mississippi State University. Dr. Radvany is the author and editor of several books and articles, including Delusion and Reality: Gambits, Hoaxes and Diplomatic One-upmanship in Vietnam, Hungary and the Superpowers and The Pacific in the 1990s: Economic and Strategic Change.