understanding warfare strategy part 3

UNDERSTANDING THE DIFFERENT KINDS OF WAR AND WARFARE STRATEGY PART 3: PSYCHOLOGICAL WARFARE PART 2…………

Download here…….. Understanding Warfare Strategy Part 3

Matt 6:5-15, 1 Chr 29:10-12, Ps 22:28, Ps 47:2,8; Dan 4:17,25,32

Ps 140:4-5 NIV

4 Keep me safe, Lord, from the hands of the wicked;

protect me from the violent, who devise ways to trip my feet.

5 The arrogant have hidden a snare for me;

they have spread out the cords of their net

1. DEFINITIONS

 

Psychological warfare is the planned tactical use of propaganda, threats and other non-combat techniques during wars, threats of war or periods of geopolitical unrest to mislead, intimidate, demoralize or otherwise influence the thinking or behavior of an enemy.

Propaganda simply means – information, hyping, advertising, marketing, publicity, puffery, hoopla, etc. to manipulate the mind, emotions, reasoning and mind. Through propaganda, a harmful or toxic product can be packaged, branded and presented as a beneficial item in order to mislead and influence your purchase decision through publicity and marketing.

 

 

2. TOOLS OF PSYCHOLOGICAL WARFARE

The main target of psychological warfare is to capture the hearts and the minds of an enemy or opponent. The enemy seeks to influence a believer’s thinking or behavior pattern with the aid of propaganda. The enemy’s main aim is to manipulate or distort the emotional state, reasoning, motives, values, beliefs of its target with propaganda as the major tool.

 

 

3. MEDIA THROUGH WHICH PSYCHOLOGICAL OPERATION PROPAGANDA ARE DISSEMINATED

 

1. Through Face-To-Face Verbal Communication
   1. Propaganda is pushed through physical contact. E.g. the boastful attitude of wrestlers before a wrestling match is a good example of propaganda. They employ the use of threat, defamation, intimidation to scare the opponent into a state of cowardice.

 

1. Audio-Visual Media Like TV, Movies, Games
   1. The audio-visual media is gradually being replaced by the versatile social media. In North Korea – psychological operational propaganda against the USA is so strong that children from elementary schools are taught to hate anything American via social media, TV and other means through the tool of propaganda. The children are indoctrinated and grow up to hate anything that has to do with the US.
   2. Games and Comics, are specifically designed and used to indoctrinate these children to see anything American as evil, and must be fought against.

• FOX NEWS – Can be regarded as the propaganda machine of the Republicans. Every government always have their media leanings to propagate and push what they believe in as an administration.

 

1. Audio-Only Media Like Radio

 

1. Purely Visual Media Like Leaflets, Magazines, Newspapers, Books, Or Posters
   1. This Day – Was known at a time as the Propaganda machine of the Government of that day in Nigeria.
   2. Governments engage lobbyists to launder their image – Paul Manafort, Trump Campaign Chief worked for Ukrainian President, etc.

 

4. CATEGORIES OF PSYCHOLIGICAL WAR PROPAGANDA

According to a former CIA operative Daniel Lerner in his 1949 book, psychological warfare against Nazi Germany, he details the US military’s World War 2 psychological warfare campaign and helped to categorize psychological warfare into three categories:

 

1. White Propaganda – Information that is truthful and only moderately biased. The source of the info is cited.
2. Grey Propaganda – the information is mostly truthful and contains no information that can be disproven. However, no sources are cited.

• Black Propaganda – literally “fake news” the information is false or deceitful and is attributed to fake sources not responsible for its creation.

 

5. MESSAGE OR ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGICAL WARFARE:

 

1. Mislead – Propaganda generally deceive, bamboozle, hoodwink (put a wool), distort and bring confusion into your heart.
2. Intimidate – scare, terrify, threaten, bully, frighten, terrorize and daunt you.
3. Demoralize – discourage, dispirit (paralyses, weakens and takes the strength out of you), depress, dishearten, deflate, undermine you
4. Propaganda negatively influence your thinking pattern or behavior.

 

6. BIBLICAL EXAMPLE OF PSYCHOLOGICAL WARFARE

2 KINGS 18:17-37 – Sennacherib boasts against the lord

19 Then the Rabshakeh said to them, “Say now to Hezekiah, ‘Thus says the great king, the king of Assyria: “What confidence is this in which you trust?

20 You speak of having plans and power for war; but they are mere words. And in whom do you trust, that you rebel against me?

21 Now look! You are trusting in the staff of this broken reed, Egypt, on which if a man leans, it will go into his hand and pierce it. So is Pharaoh king of Egypt to all who trust in him.

22 But if you say to me, ‘We trust in the Lord our God,’ is it not He whose high places and whose altars Hezekiah has taken away, and said to Judah and Jerusalem, ‘You shall worship before this altar in Jerusalem’?”

23 Now therefore, I urge you, give a pledge to my master the king of Assyria, and I will give you two thousand horses—if you are able on your part to put riders on them!

24 How then will you repel one captain of the least of my master’s servants, and put your trust in Egypt for chariots and horsemen? 25 Have I now come up without the Lord against this place to destroy it? The Lord said to me, ‘Go up against this land, and destroy it.’”

19 Then the Rabshakeh said to them, “Say now to Hezekiah, ‘Thus says the great king, the king of Assyria: “What confidence is this in which you trust?

This is a typical example of how one can be demoralized with just information without any weapon of war. In the above passage, Hezekiah and his cohorts (army of Judah) were bamboozled and dispirited through words. Psychological warfare tools were deployed even when the war had not begun to dispirit and take away all the strength and morale that the people had at their disposal. They were bamboozled, hoodwinked, scared, dispirited and intimidated just through the use of information without the use of instruments of war.

    2 Kings 19:1-7

Isaiah Assures Deliverance

1 And so it was, when King Hezekiah heard it, that he tore his

clothes, covered himself with sackcloth, and went into the house of the Lord.

2 Then he sent Eliakim, who was over the household, Shebna the scribe, and the elders of the priests, covered with sackcloth, to Isaiah the prophet, the son of Amoz. 3 And they said to him, “Thus says Hezekiah: ‘This day is a day of trouble, and rebuke, and blasphemy; for the children have come to birth, but there is no strength to bring them forth.

4 It may be that the Lord your God will hear all the words of the Rabshakeh, whom his master the king of Assyria has sent to reproach the living God, and will rebuke the words which the Lord your God has heard. Therefore lift up your prayer for the remnant that is left.’ ”

5 So the servants of King Hezekiah came to Isaiah.

6 And Isaiah said to them, “Thus you shall say to your master, ‘Thus says the Lord: “Do not be afraid of the words which you have heard, with which the servants of the king of Assyria have blasphemed Me. 7 Surely I will send a spirit upon him, and he shall hear a rumor and return to his own land; and I will cause him to fall by the sword in his own land.” ’ ”

When the King heard the news of the propaganda, he sought for refuge in the house of the Lord. God brought forth a word of comfort to him through the prophet Isaiah and it consoled him and restored strength to his bones. God caused the enemies of Hezekiah to hear a rumour of war and return to their own land. God expects believers to turn to His arms whenever they are faced with trials, intimidation or voice of threat. God is the surest refuge. When you are intimidated, may you learn to run to the Lord and not the arms of flesh.

Having no strength or little strength to bring to life the ideas being conceived from within is a dangerous position to be, it can lead to still birth or death of the idea that has been conceived. May the Lord provide necessary strength to bring forth your beautiful ideas to reality in Jesus Name.

 

LIFE APPLICATIONS OF PROPAGANDA:

1. IN RELATIONSHIPS – Some ladies are scared off and hoodwinked by their best friends to say no to some potential suitors through discouraging comments and commentaries only for them to end up with the same guy as wives.
2. IN PURSUIT OF CAREERS –A woman politician in a state in Nigeria was threatened, bullied and intimidated from coming out on the day of her party’s primaries by her opponent. The opponent was declared as the winner unopposed. Propaganda has been used to destroy many careers and dreams in the past and is still relevant today.

• IN BUSINESS – Some businesses have been ruined when competitors undertake a de-marketing campaign through spreading of wrong information, hyping in social media of their opponents’ services etc. They send bulk messages to customers and cause panic by hyping a little issue to chase the competitor out of business.

1. Generally, many have been discouraged, dispirited, deflated by the suggestions of the enemy to them in their mind. The enemy have constantly fed them that they are useless, inadequate, underqualified, and all manners of derogatory suggestions and they have in turn accepted the propaganda of the devil etc.