psywar
- noun
- /ˈsaɪˌwɔr/
- Jargon
:
guerra psicológica
- The Office of War Information, Foreign Morale Analysis Division, claimed in April 1944 that a psywar campaign could increase battlefield surrenders.
- US psywar
- American psywar
Examples
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If we cannot reach any firmer conclusions about the effects of psywar in the Pacific, we can develop a stronger grasp of the ideas that drove it.
Academic text (2010) -
US psywar was a combination of scientific method and myth-making.
Academic text (2010) -
A central principle of American psywar was the necessity of truth.
Academic text (2010) -
Fellers saw psywar as more than an arm of the war effort.
Academic text (2010) -
Despite the best efforts of historians, the effectiveness of this psywar campaign is ultimately imprecise.
Academic text (2010) -
The psywar program emerged out of a national intellectual context and institutional subculture.
Academic text (2010) -
While psywar mostly failed to induce mass surrender, this critique should be qualified.
Academic text (2010) -
Psywar was an auxiliary activity that only softened the enemy before its military destruction.
Academic text (2010) -
Contemporaries complained that psywar failed to make Japanese forces surrender en masse.
Academic text (2010) -
The general emphasized the importance of psywar in winning the hearts and minds of civilians during the conflict.
Synonyms
8
7.0
To use false information, threats, and messages to make an enemy feel afraid and weak in war and politics
A practice of spreading biased information to make people accept certain ideas
How Influential
Surface Forms
Morphology
psywar = psychological + war (semi-transparent) = psy + war
The components 'psy' and 'war' are clear, but the specific meaning of using psychological tactics in warfare is specialized.
Etymology
The word psywar comes from joining psy-, the same start as psychology, meaning 'mind', and war, meaning 'fight'. So it pictures a 'fight of minds' and means using psychological tactics or propaganda to influence people.