By William E. Daugherty
An Account of the Origin of the Terms PsyWar and PSYOP *
It has been amply demonstrated that American
employment of propaganda, psychological
warfare (PsyWar), psychological operations (PSYOP), or whatever one
chooses to call the activity that these terms are intended to describe is
neither revolutionary nor un-American. In this essay the origins of the terms
"PsyWar" and "PSYOP" will be described.
PSYWAR AND PSYOP
The terms "psychological operations" and
"psychological warfare" are often used interchangeably to identify an
activity or function as old as human conflict or intercultural group relations.
Both terms, however, are known to be of relatively recent origin. Psychological
warfare was first used in 1920 and psychological operations in 1945.
The British military analyst and historian, J. F. C. Fuller, is believed to have been the one who coined
the term "psychological warfare," when in 1920, in a scholarly
analysis of lessons learned during World War I, especially as these related to
the employment of such new weapons as armour, he allowed his mind to wander
imaginatively about the character of the future battlefield. In his treatise on
tanks he prophesied that traditional means of warfare, as then known and
understood, might in time be
replaced by a purely psychological
warfare, wherein weapons are not used or battlefields
sought. . . but [rather] . . .the corruption of the human
reason, the dimming of the human intellect, and the disintegration of the moral
and spiritual life of one nation by the
influence of the will of another is accomplished. 1
Although Fuller's employment of the term is believed
to have been the earliest recorded use of the phrase, there is not thought to
be any direct connection between his use and the widespread adoption of it by
Americans on the eve of World War II. The British did not adopt the term to
describe what both they and the Americans hesitated to describe as propaganda
operations. Instead of employing the term "PsyWar", the British
adopted the term "political warfare" to describe those activities
that Americans came to identify in time as psychological warfare or PsyWar.
Since World War II the British have followed American practice and now use the
term "SYWAR" to describe the activities they previously identified as political warfare. The earliest recorded use
of the term "psychological warfare" in an American publication
occurred in January 1940 when an article
entitled "Psychological Warfare and How to Wage It"
appeared in a popular American journal. 2
The earliest recorded use of the
term "psychological operations" occurred early in 1945 when Captain (later Real Admiral) Ellis M. Zacharias, U.S. Navy,
employed the term in an operation plan designed to hasten the surrender
of Japan. Without any description or explanation, the term was used in the context "All psychological
operations will be coordinated both as to times and trends in order to
avoid reduction of effectiveness of this main operation." 3 The
next use of the term was in 1951, when the Truman Administration renamed an
interagency strategy committee giving it the title Psychological Operations
Coordinating Committee. Neither in 1945 nor
in 1951 did the use of the term "psychological operations"
create so much as a ripple of interest.
Although the Department of the
Army made the change in 1951, it was not
until the 1960s that psychological operations came to supplant psychological
warfare as the all-inclusive term in common use. Any explanation of this
development must take into account the fact that Americans have become
increasingly concerned about the continued use of a term that includes the word
"warfare" to describe an activity that is directed to friends and
neutrals as much or more than to hostile or potentially hostile people.
Examples are the Lebanon crisis of 1958 and the Dominican Republic intervention
of 1965.
In the late 1960s, with the widespread use of
psychological operations in Indochina, emphasis was placed upon the need to
integrate PSYOP with other training and operations and upon the reinforcement
which other missions could lend to
psychological operations. The psychological objective of military
assistance and civic action, for example, was more fully stressed.
Notes
1 J. F. C. Fuller, Tanks
in the Great War, 1914-1918 (London: Murray, 1920), p. 320.
2. Anon., "Psychological Warfare and How To Wage
It," Current History and Forum, LI (January 1940), pp. 52-53.
3. Ellis M. Zacharias, Capt. USN., Secret Missions: The Story of an
Intelligence Officer (New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1946), p. 345.
* This Essay was originally published in The Art and Science of Psychological Operations: Case Studies of Military Application, Volume One, US Department of the Army, April 1976
