Chinese Tactics > PART ONE: People’s Liberation Army Forces > Chapter 5: Tactical Information Operations > Overview of PLA Psychological Warfare
5-25. Chinese psychological warfare encompasses those IO activities wherein a combatant employs information and media in order to target human thought, emotion, and spirit. At tactical echelons, the objective of psychological warfare is to create a psychological condition favorable to friendly forces and unfavorable to the enemy, reducing enemy morale, and consequently, the enemy’s will to resist. The PLA views psychological warfare as the operational element of the fundamental reason for conflict: a contest of wills. As such, the PLA notably prioritizes psychological operations. Psychological warfare is considered a fourth operational mode, in addition to land, air, and sea warfare. An effective psychological warfare campaign is considered to be the best possible trade-off, paying a small price in lives and material for as big a victory as possible.
Note. The PLA appears to categorize domains in much the same way as does the United States, but its categorization of psychological warfare as an operational mode is unique. It is unclear how operational modes differ from domains.
5-26. The PLA integrates psychological warfare into all elements of its operations. Psychological warfare is organized as campaign psychological warfare, a discrete campaign in much the same vein as information warfare, maneuver warfare, or firepower warfare. Psychological warfare is considered to have a much broader scope than any other campaign, encompassing not only battlefield combatants, but also national military and economic strength, national will and morale, and national political and social cohesion. Psychological warfare is one of the main reasons why the PLA employs political officers in most of its organizations, and the PLA considers itself to have a fundamental advantage in psychological warfare against nearly any opponent due to its political unity of purpose.
5-27. Psychological warfare seeks to achieve the soft kill: the use of nonlethal coercive means to impose one’s will upon an uncooperative opponent. This contrasts with hard-kill techniques, which involve the use of physical force to achieve this coercion. Psychological warfare is thought to have uniquely powerful soft-kill capabilities: a well-constructed psychological campaign is the only thing that can achieve Sun Tzu’s definition of supreme excellence—subduing one’s opponent without fighting.
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| Figure 5-2. Chinese psychological warfare |