Counterinsurgency is Ideological/Psychological Warfare

Excerpts from Book

In broad terms, counterinsurgency refers to covert actions directed at suppressing subversive, dissident, insurgent, and revolutionary actors. It depends on psychological warfare to assert control over discourse, ideology, and communication in order to delegitimize and isolate insurgent movements and to weaken their support among populations that might otherwise serve as their social, political, economic, and intelligence base. It involves isolating insurgent groups geographically and socially to neutralize their tactical and strategic advantages in guerrilla warfare, while reinforcing the legitimacy of the State and imperial power. For counterinsurgency to be effective, therefore, the dominant ideology must control the flow of information and communication to maintain, strengthen, and reconfigure a population’s allegiance to the State.

In 1951, the Human Resources Research Institute held a conference on psychological warfare at the Maxwell Air Force Base. The Office of the Chief of Psychological Warfare of the Army determined that the Operations Research Office would lead the effort in publishing training manuals on psychological warfare. The following year, on April 4, the CIA wrote “Ideological-Psychological Warfare” (released in 2000), a blueprint for counterinsurgency operations at the national and international levels. The document’s opening line states the problem and objective: “To examine the value, content and our means for waging effective ideological warfare against the worldwide Communist apparatus.” In simple terms, psychological warfare is symbolic warfare insofar as the State depends on the reproduction of an ideology that gives it legitimacy. What stands out in this document, like many official documents of the past, is the honesty in terms of why ideological warfare is needed in the first place. The document explicitly expresses that “One cannot fight an ideological war without ideological tools” and that “Human activity follows this sequence: emotion, ideas, organization, and action. In our struggle against the Soviets we have organized and acted without developing a positive synthesis of our ideas”.

Symbolic or discursive counterinsurgency should thus support US imperialism’s geopolitical and economic project by attacking communism ideologically, wherever it may appear. Within this document we note the explicit ways theory and knowledge production in general can be used to target communism. The document argues that the US has insufficiently paid attention in “developing ideological shells to disrupt the basic concepts of the enemy” in order to dismantle communism’s theoretical and ideological foundations. It further asserts that communism is greatly informed by theory, whereas US policy takes a more pragmatic approach to solving problems. “It is for this reason, perhaps, that we have overlooked the advantages that can accrue from a well-designed ideological campaign” (p. 2). The CIA hence recognized that physical force alone is not enough for counterinsurgency to be effective when combating an insurgency whose theory and praxis of liberation resonates with a particular population’s cause and demands against the State.

Another salient argument the document makes is that propaganda can only do so much when it’s not tied to a “permanent literature: with a strong history and philosophy.” If counterinsurgency doesn’t develop its own “permanent literature,” it will solely rely on physical force, which has proven time and again to be ineffective in the long term. Theory must therefore be developed to capture those who would otherwise support an insurgency. It’s not surprising that the post-world war 2 literature in the social sciences and the humanities developed theories on modernization, development, ethics and social justice (a la Rawlsian), as well as the defanged postmodern and poststructural perspectives that falsely claimed the end of history and master narratives. Anthropological studies that were conducted and published in collaboration with the CIA stand out as one of the most egregious, namely studies that infiltrated student movements and Indigenous communities in (neo)colonial contexts.

Research was key in not only targeting the legitimacy of a particular political philosophy such as Marxism, but it also capitalized on the political and ideological rifts emerging from within, aiming to strengthen the most reactionary “communist” forces. As the document states,

“The ideological factor is the Achilles Heel of Bolshevism, a machine put together to impose an ideological pattern that has been demonstrably proven to be inferior. Communism is vulnerable to a counter ideological attack, because whatever moral sanction there is behind the ‘elite’ of Bolshevism, is based on ideology. The more we puncture that ideology and reduce it to cinders in the minds of men, the easier the rest of the job we have set ourselves to do” (p. 6).

It’s evident that top military officials and certainly the CIA have understood the centrality of ideological warfare (e..g, the battle for ideas), noting that military, political, and even economic actions against an insurgency are necessary yet insufficient in reproducing the US’s hegemonic geopolitical position. Non-military ideological warfare is equally important, in other words. For this reason, the university and academia in general, including the broker intellectual class it reproduces, must neatly fall in line with the State’s ideological and material project while presenting themselves as spaces of academic freedom in which inquiry is democratically constituted.

The State certainly rules by wielding its sword but it solidifies its dominion with pen and paper, codified into laws that structure all spheres of social existence, including knowledge producing institutions. In relatively stable socio-political conditions, the State may allow for small pockets of dissidence within the intellectual class in order to maintain the veneer of democracy. This, in turn, establishes legitimacy to what is fundamentally a modern/colonial system of unimaginable violence. When dissident voices become politically unmanageable, however, the State easily recalibrates itself. Its disciplining mechanisms effectively create a culture of fear so that faculty, staff, and students return to their subservient positions, particularly when social movements take on more radical expressions that directly challenge the material and ideological apparatuses of racial capitalism and settler colonialism. Take, for instance, the way faculty, staff, and especially students have been criminalized for speaking out and organizing against genocide. What separates these protests from that of other student-led protests is that the Gaza Solidarity Encampments were not organizing for inclusion or to restructure the curriculum. They undoubtedly achieved this by reclaiming education in the lawns they occupied. But what is of greatest importance to acknowledge is that they examined and amplified the material links between the university’s production of knowledge and the manufacturing of technologies of colonial violence “battle-tested” on Palestinians and exported around the world to repress liberation struggles. It is not surprising that the State’s counterinsurgency on the domestic front is seeking to discursively and materially target students, faculty, and staff whose only crime was to demand for the university to disclose, divest, and delink itself from Israeli weapon manufacturing companies. The counterinsurgent discourse on “pro-Hamas” or “terrorist sympathizers” we see in the mainstream media or the concrete actions such as visa revocations, ICE raids, suspensions, dismissals, and arrests has had a chilling effect, to say the least. The concerted attacks against dissidents reveals, more than anything, that pro-Palestine, anti-genocide, and anti-colonial organizing is perceived as a threat, and that the broker intellectual class in academia or imperial stenographers of mainstream media must continue to play the counterinsurgent role in undermining the legitimate demands of those who have chosen to side with the oppressed. If you are not silent and complicit, there will be consequences.

The CIA’s Ideological/Psychological Warfare Manual, alongside other manuals on counterinsurgency, admits to the ideological strength of insurgency and the centrality of gaining legitimacy via population support at the expense of the State. While counterinsurgency or counterrevolutionary measures have seemingly unlimited resources and military power, the insurgency’s power lies in its philosophy and praxis of liberation (ideology), social and cultural capital, and historical and collective memory that is diametrically opposed to domination. In conventional war, the insurgency would find it impossible to defeat the State’s military, at least in the initial stages of an insurrection. However, in guerrilla and ideological warfare, the insurgency stands a better chance, however long this may take. After all, an insurgency is a protracted struggle that is difficult to anticipate how long it will last until insurgents collectively deliver the final blow against the State. An insurgency’s unpredictability and protractedness are what give it its strength.

In 1953, The Nature of Psychological Warfare was published (released in 2008), and the first line of chapter 1 directly positions the aims in the following way: “Psychological warfare is one of the means nations use to promote their policies and objectives vis-a-vis the outside world” (p. 3). Counterinsurgency in the form of psychological warfare, as the document argues, has been waged since nations have existed, tracing the use of rhetoric and communication theory from ancient to modern times. The Trojan Horse is claimed to be a one of the earliest examples of deception and psychological warfare, though in this instance it is intimately related to physical warfare or direct military action. Unsurprisingly, Nazi Germany is referred to as a contemporary example of the use psychological warfare via the new technologies designed for mass communication (e.g., radio). Certainly a precursor already existed in the United States with the use of the radio, documentary film, and student and professor exchange programs, and printed publications, but Germany took it to unprecedented levels through the systematic control of information and propaganda, as well as academic and scientific knowledge production.

An important insight that this document provides is the notion that, even when conventional warfare becomes inevitable and when a victor has been declared or “when the shooting war is over”, counterinsurgent action (p. 7), including psychological warfare, must be taken to consolidate the victory. In times of peace or in times of war, counterinsurgency must be used against enemies and friends alike, for it is much more effective to engage in psychological or symbolic warfare before an insurgency begins to employ its own ideological warfare (“the battle of ideas” waged through pen and paper), which, as mentioned above, is much more grounded in the material reality insurgents are trying to radically transform, thus having greater resonance with the general population.

Symbolic or epistemological warfare draws on theoretical advancements of the human sciences, particularly the disciplines and fields that have advanced some form of communication theory. As the text at hand illustrates, “Education, journalism, advertising, public opinion measurement, human relations, labor relations, military morale studies, and community studies have all served as laboratories for developing a body of theory about communication” that serves counterinsurgency (p. 9). Political science, psychology, anthropology, and sociology, as the points out, are one of the most salient disciplines in regards to empirically examining and theorizing communication as integral to social existence. Studies focused on the symbols of communication, mass media’s impact on collective behavior, how recipients of a discourse make meaning of and decisions from the communication available to them, how communities choose or abandon leaders, and, how and why social unrest emerges to threaten the status quo, not to mention the creation of a culture of fear within a (perceived or real) hostile environment.

Means of communication have undoubtedly sought to manufacture consent using the knowledge that comes out of these academic studies. It is not for nothing that the social sciences formed a central role during the Cold War. Education is also listed as yet another important discipline and field of research, namely pedagogy (of domination) and its concomitant theories of learning aimed at indoctrination: “the systematized knowledge of learning and forgetting curves, and of motivations to learn; and the several systematic theories of learning that seek to combine experimental knowledge into a structure of principles” are of great importance for counterinsurgency (p. 9). Whether conveyed through mainstream media, schools, or universities, dominant discourses are contingent upon a curriculum and pedagogy of cruelty aimed at indoctrination. The practice of counterinsurgency is the application of the theories developed by the human sciences, theories of communication, pedagogy, curriculum, and the ways knowledge and the attitude this produces functions to reproduce power.

“We can bear in mind that psywar is often ‘waged in peacetime, ‘against’ friends, ‘for’ constructive purposes, and yet give due weight to that one very important type of psywar is wage in wartime against enemies, mostly by soldiers, not civilians, and for purposes that are destructive or even lethal.” (P. 12)

Psychological warfare, whether for military action or manufacturing consent, has some key features that should be kept in mind: the source, target, message, symbol, and medium. The source refers to the individual or organization where a message originates. The target of psychological warfare can vary from individuals to entire populations, governments, and organizations. In The Nature of Psychological Warfare, the message is described as follows: “The message of psywar is always a symbol or a series of symbols that is to be communication to the target audience with the intention of inducing (a) a specific and diseried reaction that will lead to (b) specific and desired behavior on the part of that audience.” The symbol is what communicates an idea, whether in concrete or abstract terms, that will serve the purpose of counterinsurgency. For example, the imagery of Black men, who are on the verge to rape white women, symbolizes and communicates the brute, savage, and violent nature Black men, which serves to justify lynchings, mass incarceration, and police brutality. The media through which a message travels from the source to the target can vary from books, magazines, leaflets, news, movies, cartoons, radio broadcasts, commercials, and billboards.

As we have seen in Gaza, Israeli drones have dropped leaflets and issued multiple directives to already displaced Palestinians instructing them to move to designated “safe zones.” On October 13, 2025, a drone dropped leaflets after Palestinians were released from the Israeli prisons, communicating to families in the West Bank the following message: “We are watching you. If you give any support to the terrorists, you will be arrested.”

We have also seen baseless claims that Hamas carried out mass rape during Operation Al Aqsa Flood, a claim that casts Palestinians as subhuman, animal-like, and inherently violent terrorists who must be extermination. News reports and posts on social media since October 7, 2023 show coordinated efforts to communicate to the world that Palestinians deserve death, that, to bring peace to the middle east, Palestine must be eradicated. The source may range from Israeli bot farms to major outlets such as The New York Times, yet the target, message, and symbolic forms often converge regardless of the medium used to send out a dehumanizing message.

In a time of genocide, resistance, and global solidarity, psychological warfare in academia has become a primary tool to silence dissent. There are different levels that should be addressed to understand the relationship between psychological warfare and academia. At the micro level, there are FOIA requests on faculty members which aim to create a culture of fear. Everyday interactions with faculty who are indifferent and silent also convey a message that dissent is not welcome in the white halls of the ivory tower. Here, silence symbolizes complicity. Those who do not comply with the culture of indifference are thus deserving of repression. After all, “they asked for it.” “They should have listened to senior faculty who told them to not rock the boat until they got tenure.”

At the institutional level, administration has easily (or willfully) succumbed to outside pressure to discipline faculty, staff, and students who have spoken out and organized against genocide, including the university’s investments in the production of weapons and technologies of colonial violence. Title VI has been weaponized to justify summary suspensions and dismissals, whereby the “safety” of Jewish faculty, staff, and students is apparently under threat and must be defended at all costs. The message conveyed to the university community is safety, yet the aim is to shield Israel of all criticism for its genocidal actions in Gaza and to obscure the university’s complicity and concrete investments in genocide. A chilling effect doesn’t really capture the disciplining apparatus violently responding to dissent, which has impacted peoples livelihood and health for merely choosing to be on the right side of history. It doesn’t really address the fascist reconfiguration of institutions that at the very least pretended to care about academic freedom and free speech. In a time of genocide, universities and academia writ large have revealed their inherently violent foundations, which could never be reformed or serve as a source of social transformation. At the more macro state and national level, policies and executive orders adopting the IHRA definition of antisemitism have also resulted in the criminalization of all critique related to Israel’s settler colonial, racist, and genocidal project.

Ultimately, psychological warfare can take various forms in different historical contexts yet the objectives remain the same: counterinsurgency, pacification, submission, and domination.