Psychological Operations: Air Force Doctrine Document 2-5.5

Historically, psychological operations PSYOP have played a key role in military campaigns. Today, PSYOP are considered an integral part of US joint military operations. As such, PSYOP are a responsibility of all US military commanders. Modern PSYOP are enhanced by our ability to communicate massive amounts of information to target audiences with the intent of influencing their attitudes, emotions, objective reasoning powers, decision making processes, and behavior. Examples of PSYOP include promises, threats of force or retaliation, conditions of surrender safe passage for deserters, or support to resistance groups. Successful and effective PSYOP depend on several factors such as the intended message we are trying to convey the message form and format the degree of integration with other efforts cultural differences probability of reception timely action and the target audiences perception of our credibility and capability to carry out promises or threatened action.