"To subdue the enemy without fighting is the acme of skill."— Sun Tzu, 4th century B.C.
Psychological operations, or PSYOP, is a form of political and
military activity that is understood and defined in a number of different ways. The definition upon which current peacetime U.S. PSYOP policy is based was established in Department of Defense Directive S-3321.1, Overt Psychological Operations Conducted by the Military Services in Peacetime and in Contingencies Short of Declared War (1984). That definition states that Psychological Operations are "planned political, economic, military, and ideological activities directed toward foreign countries, organizations, and individuals in order to create emotions, attitudes, understandings, beliefs, or behavior favorable to the achievement of U.S. political and military objectives." The DoD directive was formulated to establish standard guidelines for all aspects of PSYOP (planning, programming, execution, control) conducted by agencies of the U.S. Department of Defense in non-wartime conditions. But PSYOP also includes a number
of other activities that fall under strategic military and political policy. Activities of that type are defined in Joint Chiefs of Staff Publication 1
as: "planned psychological activities in peace and war, which normally pursue objectives to gain the support and cooperation of friendly and neutral countries and to reduce the will and the capacity of hostile or potentially hostile countries to wage war." The latter definition reflects
the expansion in scope that has occurred in PSYOP in the last fifty
years. In the modern world, the scope of PSYOP is wider than ever. See video https://www.dvidshub.net/video/882019...

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