Wednesday, October 7, 2015

Research Writing Exercise from Chas Jones

     The topic I picked was the use of psychological warfare and propaganda in Vietnam. Psychological warfare is defined as the manipulation of psychological influences, primarily concerned with morale, to strengthen the ability of one's own country and weaken the enemy. Psychological operations are planned operations to convey selected information and indicators to audiences to influences there emotions, motives, objectives and ultimately the behavior of organizations, groups and individuals. Psychological warfare is learning everything about your target enemy; especially there vulnerabilities. For psychological warfare to be effective, the use of propaganda is essential. An example of this is  before Desert Storm President Bush said Saddam Hussein is "just like Hitler". In Vietnam Psychological warfare was used on both sides. North Korea had a daily radio show conveying all of there views trying to discourage the solders. But the Americans countered with a daily radio show of there own. In Vietnam, the United States would conduct air raids on specific strategic targets as psychological warfare to try to get the enemy to surrender early. This obviously didn't work and this is mainly because North Korea had access to support and sanctuary from external powers, which aloud them to continue to fight even though the production facilities were destroyed. Another main reason they didn't surrender was there strong commitment to the objective. North Vietnam had another psychological warfare tactic but it was not purposeful. North Vietnams readiness to absorb extreme human and material loss played a big toll on the American solders. They felt as if they were fighting a never ending war.
http://www.psywarrior.com/psyhist.html
Americans use of propaganda

1 comment:

  1. Psychological warfare just shows how much these wars mean. Each country doing everything they can to somehow beat each other. The thing that really interests me the most is all the propaganda. Everyone uses it. In war it is used to tear down the enemy and boost morale. It is also used in the homeland to get your citizens on board with the war. People need to be careful with propaganda because it is a bending of the truth to persuade you to think a certain way.

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