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The history of U.S. PSYOPS: Before the beginning (Part 1)

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Psychological Operations. These two words have become so controversial, that the U.S. Army in 2010 nonchalantly changed it to the rather bland and bureaucratic title Military Information Support Operations (MISO).  Rosa Brooks, Senior Advisor to the Undersecretary of Defense for Policy and Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Rule of Law and International Humanitarian Policy explained, “The term PSYOP was anachronistic and misleading; Military Information Support is a more accurate description of the activities and programs at issue.“ But how necessary was this course of action? Enough concern apparently that our company command directed us to cover up the unit nomenclature anytime we took our vehicle off Fort Bragg for field exercises. The word “POB” (Psychological Operations Battalion) was apparently enough to strike fear in the masses.

According to the United States Department of Defense (DoD), Psychological Operations or PSYOPS is: “Planned operations to convey selected information and indicators to foreign audiences to influence their emotions, motives, objective reasoning, and ultimately the behavior of foreign governments, organizations, groups, and individuals. The purpose of psychological operations is to induce or reinforce foreign attitudes and behavior favorable to the originator’s objectives.”

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Comments

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  • Micky M

    Leo, I have a lot of SOFREP reading to catch up on. I found this article very interesting and look forward to reading part 2.

  • Bradley G

    I’m glad you were in and I do appreciate the article. My badgering certainly isn’t more than just that. There are a few pet peeves to avoid getting the message across and the S at the end is certainly nails on the chalk-board to the regiment. It’s similar to anyone referring to ‘IO Messages.’

  • Leo W.

    Fair criticism. But it is Psychological Operations. When I was in, no one had a cow over saying PSYOPS or PSYOP. Maybe it was just us. To be clear, FM 3-05.301 does say PSYOP. But even looking at the U.S. Army official site says both PSYOPS and PSYOP.
    As for covering up the name, it happened twice when we took vehicles off Fort Bragg proper. I agree it was silly, most people don’t know what POB or POG is. But that decision was above my paygrade. Most of the training was done within Fort Bragg, so we didn’t have to do this often. I’m talking about the few times we actually had to take our vehicles outside of the Fayetteville area.
    I was Active duty 2005-2009. If you question my credentials, I was in 4th POG, 3rd Psychological Operation Battalion. BN SGM Mabius when I left, although I’m going off memory here and I may have spelled that wrong.
    Again I welcome constructive criticism, and if that’s the only thing that bothers you I will drop the S in PSYOPS. But again, most of us didn’t care in passing parlance.

  • Jeff S

    Yeah that second “S” drove me crazy as well.??‍♂️

  • Bradley G

    I couldn’t read past your use of the second S in PSYOPS. No one in PSYOP says PSYOPS. That is like nails in a chalk board to anyone in the branch. Spank yourself.
    I’ve never heard of anyone that had to cover up the “POB” on their vehicles going to the training area. The interesting part is that so few people have any clue of what PSYOP is when it’s said in its full name or acronym, psychological operations or PSYOP, that I highly highly doubt there was enough disturbance in the force to make a tenant unit on Fort Bragg -since the 1970s under the same name the entire time- that would require them to cover up the “POB” on the bumper number. Highly suspect. I was there during the name change. Only those in PSYOP cared. No one outside cared one iota.
    I saw your bio. When were you active duty PSYOP? Which BN? Who was the BN Commander and CSM? I’m just curious. I couldn’t get past these two issues to read the rest. These two issue made this unreadable to me. It’s like watching a war movie and noticing obvious uniform malfunctions. It makes the entire movie unwatchable. I’m not saying you weren’t, just these two issues make me curious.