Psychological warfare is that the opposing sides use various forms of information and media as weapons to stimulate and influence people's psychology through various means such as psychological propaganda, psychological deterrence, psychological intimidation, psychological deception, etc., so as to change and develop in a predetermined direction and produce a psychological state that is beneficial to themselves and unfavorable to the enemy, so as to disintegrate and conquer the enemy on the one hand, and exchange as many things as possible at the lowest price on the other. This is a special combat style, which is special mainly because the focus of this combat style is not to completely destroy the enemy physically or materially, but to conquer the enemy mentally, emotionally and will. By conducting psychological warfare, we can weaken the enemy's morale, make them passive, or even give up resistance, so as to win small victories or "defeat the enemy without fighting."

For nearly a century, people have been studying psychological warfare scientifically. 19 15 British strategist Elting studied war and psychological problems and published his first monograph, Psychology of War. The word psychological warfare first appeared in the works published by British strategist Fuller 1920. The book Propaganda and Psychological Mobilization, co-authored by American scholars lasswell Kasai and Smith in 1935, made psychological warfare an independent science.

(2) Psychological warfare is a powerful spiritual force to defeat the enemy in the war.

Since the emergence of war in human history, military "strike hard" and psychological "soft killing" have always been closely combined, infiltrated and complemented each other. In the history of Chinese and foreign wars, psychological warfare has long been a conscious war practice and has been paid more and more attention. The outcome of psychological confrontation has a profound impact on the final outcome of the war, so that neither opposing side can ignore or underestimate the powerful role of psychological warfare. It can be said that whoever wants to win the war must win psychological warfare.

Psychological warfare, including psychological attack and psychological defense, is a complete offensive and defensive combat style, and its psychological combat effectiveness is reflected in psychological attack and psychological defense.

First of all, psychological attack has a strong "soft killing" ability, which can achieve the effect that "military war" can not achieve. In the war, we should carefully study and analyze the psychological characteristics and changing rules of enemy personnel, carry out targeted psychological attacks, induce their psychological activities by propaganda, intimidation, threats, deception, temptation, bribery and other means, disintegrate their fighting morale and resistance will, and make them lay down their weapons or even surrender. This kind of special operations, which are completely different from military strikes, often achieve unexpected and amazing results. Liddell hart, a British strategist, pointed out in On Strategy: "A strategic thinker should focus on' paralyzing' the enemy, not how to physically destroy them. As far as the next stage of the war is concerned, killing a person in the battle only costs the army a soldier, but a person with a nerve shock can become the medium of terrorist germs, which is enough to cause a terrorist phenomenon. In the advanced stage of the war, if the commander of the other side is psychologically shocked, if the government of a country is psychologically oppressed, then all the fighting forces owned by this government may also be offset. This is like the following situation: the hands are numb or paralyzed, and the sword will inevitably fall from the palm. " This sentence is enough to illustrate the great role of psychological attacks on the enemy in the war.

During the war in Afghanistan, the US military attached great importance to psychological warfare. They set up a special "Voice of Peace" radio station in Afghanistan to publicize their intention to crack down on Al Qaeda and the Taliban in the local language. They continue to provide humanitarian food relief to Afghan refugees, so as to win the goodwill and support of the international community and the Afghan people to the United States, win the hearts of the people, ease anti-American sentiment, divide the relationship between the Afghan people and the Taliban regime, and thus disperse the morale of the Afghan people; They send 1-2 EC- 120 psychological warfare propaganda planes every day to broadcast the mission code of "commando Solo" to the Afghan people. C- 17 transport plane was also dispatched, and more than 3 million leaflets were dropped in important places. After the United States supported the anti-Taliban alliance to launch a ground attack on the Taliban, the psychological warfare of the US military played a unique and important role. A large number of Taliban militants gave up their resistance and surrendered, which made the United States win the war quickly. Facts have proved that in a war, if you disarm the enemy ideologically and spiritually, it means failure or even extinction. By then, any advanced weapons and equipment will be useless and unable to play its due role.

Secondly, psychological defense has a strong cohesive effect and can greatly enhance combat effectiveness in war. War is famous for its fierceness, tension, hardship, bloodiness and cruelty. People involved in the war are under great psychological pressure without exception. In this case, we should adopt various methods to effectively carry out psychological protection, such as strengthening ideological education and strengthening the ideals, information and value orientation of our own personnel; Organize psychological training to enhance the psychological endurance of hard environment and heavy casualties; Resolutely block the passage and weaken the psychological influence of the enemy; Vigorously destroy the source and destroy the enemy's psychological warfare media; Try to decipher the information and clarify the psychological doubts of officers and men; Psychotherapy, effective control of abnormal psychology on the battlefield, etc. , can make our personnel always maintain confidence in the value of the war and the victory of the war, maintain the heroic spirit of not being afraid of difficulties and bloodshed, and maintain the optimistic spirit of being fearless in times of crisis and saving the day. These are all important growth points of combat effectiveness.

During the Iraq War, the US military dispatched more than 200 psychologists, psychologists and special disease experts from China to participate in the psychological warfare in Iraq. On the one hand, they dealt psychological blows to Iraqi soldiers and civilians, on the other hand, they provided psychological counseling and psychotherapy for various adverse reactions of American officers and men in the war, so as to alleviate the strong psychological pressure and mental panic caused by high-intensity war and consolidate and improve the combat effectiveness of the troops.

(3) Psychological warfare shows great vitality in the innovative development of war practice.

In today's world, anyone who studies war can't avoid studying psychological warfare, otherwise, the victory of war will be far away from them. This irreversible trend shows that psychological warfare, a special combat style, has not weakened with the passage of time, but has become more powerful.

China is the hometown of psychological warfare, and China's ancient military strategy represented by Sun Tzu's Art of War is rich in psychological warfare thoughts. These brilliant words, "Use the way of fighting, attack his heart first" and "defeat the enemy without fighting", have become world-famous ideas of winning a total victory and attacking his heart. During the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, there were hundreds of wars, and the imprint of psychological warfare could be seen everywhere. Well-known stories such as "Encircling Wei to save Zhao", "Sun Bin chopping stoves" and "Building a plank road to sneak into Chen Cang" are all famous psychological warfare chapters. The idea of "psychological warfare is the highest and military warfare is the lowest" put forward by Sun Tzu raised psychological warfare to a strategic level for the first time and became an important founder of human psychological warfare theory. During the Three Kingdoms period, psychological warfare was more widely used in the war. In particular, Zhuge Liang put forward the idea that "the husband should fight, attack first, and attack the city for the next;" The famous conclusion that psychological warfare is the first and military warfare is the second has created many successful psychological warfare examples in practice.

The understanding and practice of psychological warfare in the west is later than that in China, but it develops very fast. Before the First World War, psychological warfare had no fixed position in international political struggle and military action. However, from the experience and lessons of war, people soon discovered the great role of psychological warfare. With the deepening of understanding, psychological warfare began to enter the palace of modern western wars. However, psychological warfare at this time is still at a relatively primary level, mainly by distributing leaflets, megaphones and other forms to publicize the enemy, persuade him to surrender, and disintegrate the enemy's air intake. , as a tactical means used in the military field. During World War II, the theory of psychological warfare was enriched and developed as never before. The long-term practice of large-scale war has made psychological warfare mature in theory and made remarkable progress in technology, especially its great influence on campaigns, campaigns and even the overall situation of war, which has made people look at it with new eyes.

In summing up the experience of World War II, Eisenhower said: "In this war, we have seen great changes in military science. I think the development of psychological warfare as a special and effective method is one of such great changes ... There is no doubt that psychological warfare is very important and should have the right to enjoy an honorary position in our military arsenal. " Since the end of World War II, local conflicts and wars caused by various contradictions around the world have never stopped. Psychological warfare has made greater progress in practice and gradually moved towards maturity and a higher level. Psychological warfare has become the most important and efficient combat style in the war, creating many vivid examples that amaze the world. No wonder after the Gulf War, a division commander of the Iraqi army said that psychological warfare was a great threat to the morale of the troops, and its power was second only to the bombing of multinational forces.