Global Security and Intelligence Studies Volume 5, Number 1, Spring / Summer 2020 | Page 43

Psychology as a Warfighting Domain
tion Mincemeat used confirmation bias
to manipulate the beliefs of the Italians
and the Germans to pave the way for a
successful invasion.
WWII demonstrated that a concerted
propaganda effort could enhance
military and political effectiveness. By
attacking the enemy’s feelings and emotions,
it reduced their problem-solving
capability, lured them into a false sense
of security, increased fear, and lowered
morale. Eroding support for adversary
leadership led to a more permissive
environment within which the Allied
forces could operate. Between leaflet
bombs, planted evidence, and departments
specifically designed for different
psychological tactics—OWI for improving
morale and shaping behavior
at home and OSS for reducing morale
and shaping behavior amongst the enemy—WWII
demonstrated the power of
psychology in war.
Deception, Intrigue, and Math?
Soviet Information Operations
during the Cold War
The Cold War, much like WWII,
was a breeding ground for propaganda,
disinformation techniques,
and psychological warfare
methods used by both sides. President
Truman kicked off a national “Campaign
of Truth” in order to counteract
Soviet propaganda. The goal of this
campaign was to counter disinformation
through “honest information about
freedom and democracy” (Wolfe 2018).
While the United States committed to
truth as a method of psychological warfare
(in addition to an increased focus
on psychological warfare), the Soviet
Union used other methods in order to
try to gain an advantage over the US. Of
particular note was their development,
refinement, and execution of reflexive
control theory (RCT).
Reflexive control is “a means
of conveying to a partner or an opponent
specially prepared information
to incline him to voluntarily make the
predetermined decision desired by
the initiator of the action” (Kamphuis
2018). RCT stipulates that when two
adversaries engage in conflict, the adversary
who better understands their
opponent’s decision-making process
and utilizes it against them is more likely
to succeed. The increased probability
of success follows a recursive algorithm.
For example, if opponent A anticipates
opponent B’s decision-making process,
opponent A is more likely to succeed. If
opponent B anticipates that opponent A
will be taking into account opponent B’s
decision-making process, opponent B
would then have the advantage, and so
on and so forth, with the final advantage
being heavily influence by which opponent
has the most accurate knowledge
and is most successful at utilizing this
knowledge of the other’s decision-making
process. The final desired outcome
of successful reflexive control is to hijack
the adversary’s decision-making
process so that they reflexively take decisions
that advantage the RCT enabler.
In order to truly understand
RCT, one must first understand its
beginnings in Maskirovka, a concept
within Russian strategic thinking defined
as “deliberately misleading the
opponent with regard to one’s own in-
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