Oh, my heart belongs to Mama,
But my brain just orbits Rama,
And the Chaplain tends the welfare of my soul.
Got my ass shot off on Thule,
And replaced on Finn McCooley,
And there’s always something there when they call roll!
Editor's Introduction to:
PSYOPS
by Stefan T. Possony
Stefan Possony received his Ph.D. in International Relations in Vienna shortly before the German Anschluss. His anti-Nazi activities put him high on the list of those wanted by the Gestapo, but he managed to escape, first to Czechoslovakia, then France, finally to the United States, where he became a valued Pentagon intelligence expert. One of his accomplishments was to predict, almost to the day, when the Soviets would detonate their first atomic bomb.
With Robert Strauss-Hupe and William Kintner, Possony co-authored the important work Protracted Conflict, one of the first books to recognize the nature of the “cold war.” After a long career in the Pentagon and at Georgetown University, Possony became a Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution, and Peace located on the campus of Stanford University. In 1970 we collaborated to write The Strategy of Technology; a new edition of that book is in preparation.
Steve Possony has long been an expert on Soviet strategy and tactics. This essay on psychological warfare was part of his presentation to the DEFENSE 1983 seminar.
PSYOPS
by Stefan T. Possony
Psyops is too large a subject for one article. So I will concentrate on two or three aspects that I think are crucial for the immediate and the more remote future.
I am using the expression “psyops” in distinction from “psychological operations,” which, naturally, are included in the term. It embraces the whole range of operations relating to all strategically relevant aspects of individual and collective minds and behavior. It relates to mental and behavioral consequences of military operations and significant events. It includes mental operations undertaken in support of military and other strategic activities. It is at the core of conflict management. In addition, it comprises different types of psychological, intellectual-conceptual, and political undertakings. Lastly, it is executed by means of techniques and equipments, and it strives through deliberate actions, most of which are standardized, to attain goals on all levels of importance.
First Conclusion: Psyops is not a limited or subsidiary activity. It is an “operational universal” in that it interrelates with all other strategic undertakings. It is a weapon in its own right and may not be vulnerable to being disarmed. It is not limited geographically. It ranges over all the fields of the intellect. It may influence feelings and will; it may activate and paralyze; and it may be the decisive factor in conflict. Its importance is badly underrated.
To be effective, psyops should be organized as a system, more precisely as a holistic system. Fragmentary, sporadic, point-oriented, and improvised psyops are bound to be unsuccessful. Psyops by bureaucratic management tend to be boring, disappointed, and usually belated.
Military principles should henceforth include this one: “All offensive and defensive operations must be supported by, and be integrated with, psyops.”
I also propose a principle of grand strategy (military plus…): “Psyops can be defeated by psyops. The side with inferior psyops probably is at the same time the side with inferior command and leadership. Other things being equal, this side is likely to suffer defeat.”
Military-political history bears this principle out, from the time of Sun Tzu and Alexander the Great to the present time. Yet no such principles are reflected in NATO defense planning.
Second Conclusion: Franklin, Lincoln, Wilson, and, up to a point, Roosevelt understood wartime psyops. International-conflict management was more or less bungled, by American presidents except, to an extent, Eisenhower. Reagan is a first-class communicator personally. But he is frequently in trouble because he lacks advisors and staffs with psyops capabilities.
Lenin may be regarded as the originator of modern psyops. According to him, it consists of propaganda, agitation, and organization, all being interrelated. Propaganda deals mainly with “theory” or ideology, agitation with “practice” or attacks on human targets who are to be crippled to decide an issue, and organization with subversion or attacks on the enemy from within.
Leaving Stalin out of consideration (we don’t have space here), Soviet psyops demonstrated astounding continuity. One man who influenced the project during the late 1920s, when he was still a youngster, is still in charge today—just one rung below Numero Uno. This is Boris Ponomarev, who displays signs that he advocates a strategy in which psyops is the dominant factor. Andropov and Ponomarev launched a major psyops offensive based on the revival of Marx and on Lenin’s formula for disarmament: Disarm the bourgeoisie and arm the proletariat. I will publish an analysis of Moscow’s strategy shift and of the new psyops high command in Defense & Foreign Affairs.
As a psyops factor, Marxism signifies ideology and little else. The renewed emphasis on Karl Marx means that ideology will be a focus of Soviet psyops. To the CPSU rulers, Marxism is ideologically crucial because it teaches that the victory of communism is ultimately inevitable. Marxism makes the CPSU look immortal.
The second focus of Soviet psyops is the Leninist policy of disarmament, compounded by deception and bluff. In the Aesopian lingo, “Leninist policy of disarmament” differs from “disarmament policy.” This Leninist policy is banked upon to accelerate the coming of the triumph. The disbelievers in Marx as a prophet should be cautious: Since the outcome of the historical process is not predestined, no outcome of the conflict is predictable. Either side may win or lose.
Americans tend to discount ideology; they do not realize that they are highly ideological themselves. Nor do they understand the true meaning of ideology, which is “science of ideas.” Such a science is legitimate and needed, and it does not contain elements that are necessarily erroneous.
In any serious conflict, a rationale of success or victory is required, together with a horizon of knowledge and of ideas that are action concepts.
The Soviets are embarking on an ideological offensive because they aim to control the world’s horizon of knowledge and action concepts, and victory-defeat rationales.
The Free World does not understand the crucial point at issue: Unless a conflict is first won spiritually, it is unlikely that it can be won materially. Ideology is the bridge to spiritual victory.
Here is my Third Conclusion: The U.S. and NATO do not understand the meaning of a psyops offensive. They have not, publically at any rate, recognized the fact that such an offensive is underway. They have not analyzed it. They do not realize the resultant threat to military security. They seem unable to visualize how a psyops defensive or counteroffensive could be mounted. They don’t even think about the problem. There are radio programs and the like, but the real psyops arena has been virtually abandoned to the enemy. It makes eminent sense for Andropov to upgrade ideology. It would make still more sense for the U.S. and NATO to inquire why their power to persuade has been allowed to atrophy, and to terminate their voluntary muteness.
The history of psyops technology is about two hundred years old, and this technology will continue to progress. Hence it is most important to look into the future.
It is no longer really difficult to send messages to the targets, that is, the persons who are to be influenced. The target cannot be reached if he is not interested in the originator or in his message, or if his interest is perfunctory. He is unattainable also if he is bored and if he finds it more pleasurable to listen to competitors, who are multiplying.
The target cannot be persuaded to listen. It is the other way around: He may listen if he already is fully or partially persuaded, and if the program is attractive in addition to informative, and if it helps him in his activities.
Fourth Conclusion: Psyops technology is more or less in hand. It
s better utilization is at present precluded in most instances by political ineptitude and by international opposition. The importance of better programming is recognized as a theory, but new ideas and fundamental improvement are rare. Hence success often is a matter of hit or miss.
At this point let us forget about history and current events, and let us resolutely turn to the future. I want to alert you to the possibility that psyops technology may advance from communicating to direct signaling.
X rays and gamma rays are located at the upper portion of the frequency spectrum. What is at the lower end? THE BRAIN, the most important of all of nature’s phenomena. Suppose it becomes feasible to affect brain cells by low-frequency waves or beams, thereby to alter psychological states and possibly to transmit suggestions and commands directly into the brain.
Who is so rash as to doubt that technological breakthroughs of this general type would not be put promptly to psyops use? More important, who would seriously assume that such a technology would not be developed to accomplish political and military surprise?
A few years ago there was much excitement about the Soviet microwave “bombardment” of the American Embassy at Moscow. Why did the KGB, under Andropov’s leadership, embark on this seemingly scurrilous—and very prolonged—effort? There was no answer to this question, except that the KGB must have wished to harass American diplomats and cause them to worry about their health. This theory was never convincing.
The question was raised as to whether the Soviets had discovered a technique of using microwaves for psychological purposes and whether they were experimenting with this technique on American specialists on the USSR, who might unwittingly be pressed into Soviet service as guinea pigs. Impossible, replied the State Department; the waves can’t break through the blood-brain barrier, and thermal effects are so negligible that the body would not be affected. Nevertheless, embassy personnel was indemnified for health damage.
By 1979 at the latest, it was known that electromagnetic fields raising body temperatures by less than .1 degree Celsius may result in somatic changes. It was most surprising that such a trivial temperature rise was having any effects and even more astonishing that those effects were significant.
Chemical, physiological, and behavioral changes can occur within “windows” of frequency and energy continua. One of those windows is connected with navigation in marine vertebrates and with biological rhythms of humans. Another is at the level of the human electroencephalogram, i.e., in the range of extremely low radio and sound waves, around 20 Hertz.
Those findings remained unexplained. They seemed to require energy amplification of the initial stimulus by some twelve orders of magnitude. No such amplification was deemed to be feasible, and none was discovered.
Let us cut the story to the minimum. The original model, according to which the blood-brain barrier cannot be broken, was derived from the axiom that electromagnetic waves interact with tissue in a linear manner. However, it turned out that the molecular vibrations caused by a stimulating extracellular electromagnetic field are nonlinear. Utterly unexpectedly, they take the form of soliton waves that can transfer energy along long molecular chains.
By 1982 the term “soliton” finally made it to the technical dictionaries. Here is a definition from the 1982 McGraw Hill scientific-technical dictionary: “A soliton wave… propagates without dispersing its energy over larger and larger regions of space.” As I understand it, it would be more correct to say: “A soliton wave propagates suddenly acquired energy, or energy imparted by shock, without dispersing it.”
Soliton waves have recently been found to be relevant in high-energy physics and in the fusion program.
In biology the solitons occur as electro-solitons and as acoustic solitons, and they form only at certain high- and low-energy levels, or “windows.” The solitons, which can be depicted as spikes, are dynamically stable; they participate in vital processes; they have long lifetimes; and their vibration has a long persistence. Those characteristics permit the formation of a soliton and the associated boost of energy.
Significance? Extracellular disturbances such as acoustic or electromagnetic bursts can be propagated across the cell membrane. In this, nonlinearities in molecular dynamics rather than chemical kinetics are the key. Put differently, the twelve-magnitude energy deficit is overcome not by brute force, but by the formation of solitons.
Visualize the brain and its environment as structures of waves, and assume that shock waves create solitons. Then imagine that modern electronics with their flexibility, accuracy, and speed are put to work.
In addition, the range of resonances probably will be increased. Hence many frequencies, as well as several options for the transmission of energy across the membranes of brain cells, may become available. This may imply that the brain cells will be reachable diversely and flexibly, and perhaps routinely.
The discovery of cross-membrane coupling may be compared to the discovery of oxygen in 1772, which allowed the proof that phlogiston, the supposed element of fire, does not exist. Once the phlogiston was buried, chemistry and the chemical industry began their triumphal march across the world.
The exploration of the cross-membrane phenomenon is only at the beginning, and it is not yet possible to anticipate practical applications. As of now a new phenomenon has been discovered, probably. Nothing is as yet known, or is known publicly, on how the soliton can be aimed to produce desired effects. Only a hypothesis can be stated: If the phenomenon can be utilized, this will in due time have crucial bearing both on the body and on the brain, and on defense.
The theory of cross-coupling was formulated by A.S. Davydov, who, it seems, published the first purely theoretical version in 1976 and followed this with a study on “Solitons as Energy Carriers in Biological Systems.” By 1979 Davydov appeared to be linked to the Ukrainian Academy of Science.
It should be noted that Russian mathematicians were concerned with solitons before Americans ever became interested. It is therefore conceivable that Davydov achieved his results long before publication, and also that the experiments that involved the U.S. Embassy produced findings that led to subsequent progress.
In the U.S., the pioneering work seems to have been done by Albert E Lawrence and W. Ross Adey, writing in Neurological Research, 1982, Vol.4, 1/2
After writing this text, I learned that the Max Planck Institute for Biochemistry (Martinsried bei Muenchen) also discovered that cell membranes can be crossed. Eberhard Neumann and Guenther Gerisch found that a shock wave passing through an electric field may create ultra-quick processes within the membrane and that through such “jumps in the field” (Feldspruenge—this probably means solitons), genes can be transmitted and cells fused.
There is a differential in the tension of the inner and outer membrane that averages 1/70,000 volt. This corresponds to 70,000 volt per (theoretical) membrane thickness of one centimeter. (The real thickness of a membrane is .1-8 centimeter.)
The discovery was made unexpectedly in the course of research on electric fields in membranes and their impact on vital processes. This research requires measurements of events lasting not more than one nano-second (one billionth of a second), and it suggested that solitons generally increase the permeability of membranes. Thus, new perspectives on genetic “engineering” were suddenly opened. Moreover, it was possible to fuse no less than fifty cells into one supercell with fifty nuclei and one single membrane. We might as well forego assessing this monstrous novelty.
The Max Planck Institute broke into the membrane, so to speak, either without knowing about Davydov, Lawrence, and Adey, or after learning about them while pursuing a different goal. In either event, a fundamental scientific rule is being confirmed once again: If the time comes for a fundamental innovation, a breakthrough discovery or invention will be made several times, at different places, and by persons working independently from one another.
It is futile to speculate on who stands where in a race that has barely begun. But it
can be postulated that the USSR probably has an ambitious research program, whereas in the U.S., while work is being done, no program—let alone a crash program—is in existence.
It is predictable that in the wake of Andropov’s upgrading of psyops, the relevant programs in the USSR will be given an early and powerful boost.
My Fifth (and last) Conclusion is that future psyops will have to be planned for perspectives that cannot be formulated before the United States embarks on a major and totally novel R&D program. Meanwhile, it must be assumed that psyops will grow worldwide in strategic importance, and in new forms.
May 23, 1983
THE BRAIN WAVE MACHINE—Stefan T. Possony
On May 20, 1983, American newspapers printed an AP story from the Veterans Hospital at Loma Linda, California, stating that the Soviets had developed a device, called Lida, to bombard human brains with radio waves. The radio beams are expected to serve as a substitute for tranquilizers and to treat sleeplessness, hypertension, and neurotic disturbances.
It is not yet determined whether Lida affects the immune and endocrine systems.
Lida is reported to change behavior in animals.
Lida is on loan to Dr. Ross Adey, chief of research at Loma Linda. Adey started testing the machine three months ago and hopes to complete his investigations within a year. According to Dr. Adey, who repeatedly visited the USSR, the Soviets have used the machine on people since at least 1960.
The machine is technically described as “a distant pulse treatment apparatus.” It generates 40 megahertz radio waves that stimulate the brain’s electromagnetic activity at substantially lower frequencies.
Dr. Adey was quoted as saying, “Some people theorize that the Soviets may be using an advanced version of the machine clandestinely to seek a change in behavior in the United States through signals beamed from the USSR.” No reference was made to the protracted microwave bombardment several years ago of the U.S. Embassy in Moscow.
There Will Be War Volume IV Page 27
