Academic literature on the topic 'Counterinsurgency – Psychological aspects'

The first three articles in this issue, grouped under the subtitle “Insurgency, State Formation, Counterinsurgency,” all deal with historical aspects of nationalism and state-building in the 20th century and resonate with contemporary politics in the Arab world. Starting with Egypt, Omnia El Shakry looks at how student demonstrations in 1935 and 1936 helped usher in the “figure of youth as an insurgent subject of politics.” This discourse placed youth at the vanguard of nationalist struggle and social change in Egypt “but only insofar as they could enact a non-antagonistic conception of politics grounded in national unity.” It also foreshadowed the emergence of a discourse of adolescent psychology in the 1940s, in which adolescence was “reconfigured as a psychological stage of social adjustment, sexual repression, and existential anomie.” Given the emphasis on the role of youth in the 2011 uprisings in Arab states, the article has potential theoretical implications for analyses of current events and discourse.

This thesis describes the development of psychological operations capabilities, introduction of forces, and the employment in Vietnam during the period 1960-1965. The complex interplay of these activities is addressed, as well as the development of PSYOP doctrine and training in the period prior to the introduction of ground combat forces in 1965. The American PSYOP advisory effort supported the South Vietnamese at all levels, providing access to training, material support, and critical advice. In these areas the American effort was largely successful. Yet, instability in the wake of President Ngo Dinh Diem's overthrow created an impediment to the ability of psychological operations to change behaviors and positively affect the outcome.

Between 1960 and 1968 the United States conducted intensive psychological operations (PSYOP) in Vietnam. To date, no comprehensive study of the psychological war there has been conducted. This dissertation fills that void, describing the development of American PSYOP forces and their employment in Vietnam. By looking at the complex interplay of American, North Vietnamese, National Liberation Front (NLF) and South Vietnamese propaganda programs, a deeper understanding of these activities and the larger war emerges. The time period covered is important because it comprises the initial introduction of American PSYOP advisory forces and the transition to active participation in the war. It also allows enough time to determine the long-term effects of both the North Vietnamese/NLF and American/South Vietnamese programs. Ending with the 1968 Tet Offensive is fitting because it marks both a major change in the war and the establishment of the 4th Psychological Operations Group to manage the American PSYOP effort. This dissertation challenges the argument that the Northern/Viet Cong program was much more effective that the opposing one. Contrary to common perceptions, the North Vietnamese propaganda increasingly fell on deaf ears in the south by 1968. This study also provides support for understanding the Tet Offensive as a desperate gamble born out of knowledge the tide of war favored the Allies by mid-1967. The trend was solidly towards the government and the NLF increasingly depended on violence to maintain control. The American PSYOP forces went to Vietnam with little knowledge of the history and culture of Vietnam or experience conducting psychological operations in a counterinsurgency. As this dissertation demonstrates, despite these drawbacks, they had considerable success in the period covered. Although facing an experienced enemy in the psychological war, the U.S. forces made great strides in advising, innovating techniques, and developing equipment. I rely extensively on untapped sources such as the Foreign Broadcast Information Service transcripts, Captured Document Exploitation Center files, and access to the U.S. Army Special Operations Command Archives. Additionally, I have digitized databases such as the Hamlet Evaluation System and Terrorist Incident Reporting System for Geographic Information System software analysis. The maps provide examples of the possibilities available to the historian using these datasets.

A key aspect of the colonial state was a geo-political dualism of space in which settlers occupied the rich agricultural plain and urban centres while Algerian peasants inhabited the communes mixtes, the forests and mountains of the interior. After the First World War the caids, the traditional élites that governed the peasants through indirect rule and patron-client relations, entered a crisis of legitimacy and were challenged by communist and nationalist movements. Marxists and historians have tended to perceive the peasants as lacking in political consciousness, incapable of organized resistance, but a new social history, by restoring agency to the lowest strata of the colonized, demonstrates that they assumed a key role in the long-term move towards insurrection. Contrary to the conventional interpretation of rural revolution as a movement initiated by a vanguard party of urban militants, the nationalists adapted to, and built upon, the traditional social and political structures of the peasant community, including the village assemblies. The colonial state largely failed in its attempts to cut the root cause of rebellion through economic modernization of the peasant economy. After 1956 the French launched Opération Pilote, a massive counterinsurgent experiment that deployed anthropology and psychological warfare, but signally failed to contain an insurrection that was embedded within the family, kin, and associational structures of rural society.