Sound Targets: American Soldiers and Music in the Iraq War

4 Music as a Psychological Tactic

Music as a Psychological Tactic 4 Psychological tactics are an important component of military operations. The ability to demoralize, intimidate, or influence an enemy without physical engagement is one of the most effective tactics of warfare. In The Art of War, Sun Tzu (sixth century bc) writes, To capture the enemy’s entire army is better than to destroy it; to take intact a regiment , a company, or a squad is better than to destroy them. For to win one hundred victories in one hundred battles is not the acme of skill. To subdue the enemy without fighting is the supreme excellence. Thus, what is of supreme importance in war is to attack the enemy’s strategy. Next best is to disrupt his alliances by diplomacy. The next best is to attack his army. And the worst policy is to attack cities.1 Sun Tzu argues that causing an enemy to surrender before conflict begins is one of the most desirable means of waging war and can be achieved through psychological tactics. This type of warfare has been employed throughout history, operating typically as the first form of attack because of its capacity to increase the perceived strength of an army and conserve its resources.2 Even when hostilities begin, the conflict can end much sooner through a psychological rather than a military arsenal.    The first use of music as a psychological tactic is difficult to pinpoint. The beating of drums or trumpet calls might have once struck fear in military opponents, but this music may also have been intended to inspire soldiers , to signal commands, and maneuver troops. Dan Kuehl, professor of information operations at Fort McNair’s National Defense University, offers Music as a Psychological Tactic   79 insight into the background of music in psychological operations: “[Music] plays a role especially in the realm of one of the five core competencies of information operations as we now define it in the U.S. military—psychological operations. And in that sense, it has been used since the beginnings of warfare . I would suggest that, unless you are a biblical literalist, Joshua did not make the walls of Jericho fall down with his trumpets, but he psychologically dislocated the defenders with that operation. And we’ve seen that all the way up to the modern times.”3 In many cases, the distinction between music that was intended to motivate troops for combat or psychologically threaten an adversary is blurred. For instance, the playing of bagpipes, an early instance of music inspiring soldiers for combat, was also used by Scottish clans as a psychological tactic.    One possible example of music employed as an intentional psychological tactic comes from the battle of the Alamo during the Texas Revolution (1835–36). According to retired army major Ed Rouse, a twenty-year veteran of psychological operations (PSYOPS) and psychological warfare (PSYWAR): “In our own American history, the Mexicans under Santa Anna, played the dreaded ‘Deguello’ [no quarter to the defenders] throughout the night and into the chilly, pre-dawn hours of March 16, 1836 as columns of Mexican soldiers attacked and overran the Alamo. The ‘Deguello’ is considered so emotional that many Texas schools still ban the playing of the song at sporting events even today.”4 Even in this instance, though, there is little documentation that the strategy was solely employed to psychologically intimidate or disorient the defenders of the Alamo, and throughout history, there seems to be degrees of overlap with music as an inspiration for combat and signals for tactical maneuvers. The nasheeds broadcast from the mosques during the Sunni/Shi’a fighting demonstrate the dual functionality of music as an inspiration for combat and a signal for attack.    The invention of radio introduced new ways for music to function in psychological operations. During World War II, radio hosts like “Tokyo Rose” (Japan) and “Axis Sally” (Germany) broadcast popular American music in an effort to attract their target audience, and then interjected propaganda messages between songs. The Japanese attempted to demoralize American troops serving in the Pacific through radio broadcasts in which announcers, usually women, proclaimed the inevitable defeat and demise of the Americans. These efforts, Kuehl says, appeared to backfire: “They played American music, which was spectacularly unsuccessful. In terms of what she was trying to do, which was to demoralize the American soldiers with the news of, ‘Today, we sank five of your battleships off the coast of [18.119.160.154] Project MUSE (2024-04-25 14:59...