This is a new one on me. Apparently the allies are using "psyops", psychological operations, to avoid bloodshed in Iraq by prompting the surrender of Iraqi troops. These psyops include leafleting, radio and TV broadcasts, phone calls and e-mails. An example message broadcast to Iraqi soldiers said, "Saddam lives like a king while his soldiers are underpaid and underequipped...."
Apparently this technique is one of the oldest forms of warfare. Alexander the Great used it when he left huge pieces of body armor behind his advancing army to convince would-be pursuers that his force was made of of giants. I do remember that story, but I was not familiar with the word "psyops". Any other examples?
At the beginning of the second World War in 1939 both the British and Germans sent out their bombers dropping leaflets. As most people could have predicted, they had no effect.
The siege of Carcassone is an example. Quoting the web:
By 760, "Pepin the Short" had taken back almost every part of the South of France from the Saracens, except for Carcassonne. True to its reputation, Carcassonne remained an impregnable fortress. After a very long siege, the Franks had good reason to think that the inhabitants of Carcassonne would soon starve and surrender. But Dame Carcas, the Sarrasin's widow, devised a shrewd strategy to save the city. She had a pig fed with the last sacks of grain the inhabitants could find. When the pig was fat enough, it was thrown over the ramparts. At the sight of such a healthy animal, the assailants sadly deduced that if the inhabitants could still feed their animals so well, they still had a lot of food in stock and that the siege would not soon end. As a result, they chose to give up and lift the siege. Dame Carcas had the bells rung all day long to announce the victory. According to the legend, Dame "Carcas sonne" les cloches (rings the bells), and this is where the name of the City would come from.
The accounts are a bit confusing to me, but it may be that the siege general who was fooled was Pepin's son Charlemagne.
quote:As most people could have predicted, they had no effect.
Another example given in that article was Nazi operative Otto Skorzeny employing psyops to convince paranoid Stalin that some of his best generals were plotting against him. This evidently prompted purges in the high command that left the Russians ill-prepared to meet subsequent German invasions. So--apparently sometimes it works.
