Soft War

 

One of the most important elements of victory in wars is influencing the minds of the forces and the people of the target country; this is achieved through planning an appropriate psychological operation and employing propaganda and information-communication tools. The soft war seeks to influence the thought and views of the target society in an attempt to undermine its intellectual and cultural circles and create instability in the ruling socio-political system by the means of propaganda.

 

Unlike military warfare in which hard power such as weapons and equipment play a key role, soft war relies on soft power. Soft power is the ability to achieve goals and desires without exerting pressure and creating coercion. In fact, by using soft power, the goals are achieved by attracting and persuading the other party.

 

Promoting relationships between the opposite genders, promoting new hairstyles and models of clothes for boys, emphasizing the intense love and love failures, spreading drug use, publishing vulgar pictures and videos, weakening the institution of family, increasing divorce, helping to promote aggression in the social arena, spreading the consumerism and introducing it as a value, weakening the cultural-religious heritage, attacking spirituality and morality, and thousands of other issues are among the main tools the enemies use during the soft war.

 

Michel Houellebecq who has anti-Islamic views talks about the soft war against Muslims: “In order to defeat Muslims, we should spread corruption among them, we cannot stop the religion by force. Fighting against Muslims and killing them is useless. We should use short skirts instead of bombs.”

 

As far as the influence of the mass media on the audience is concerned, Melvin Defleur believes that the tripartite audience-media-society relationship has cognitive, emotional and behavioural effects on the audience.

 

Cognitive effects of the media	Creating ambiguity in the minds of the audience Causing the conflict of information Removing ambiguity from the minds of the audience Shaping attitudes Highlighting the news Expanding ideological and popular systems Educational aspect of the media The influence of the values
The effective impacts of the media	Cultivating passive attitudes Increasing the possibility of being influenced Creating a feeling or influencing the relations in the long run Heartlessness and lack of interest Increasing a sense of worry Increasing social insecurity among people Causing people to have a sense of strangeness due to the weakness of social relations
Behavioural effects of the media	Making the audience active Creating new attitudes or making the situation seem ambiguous Deactivation of the audience

 

The Function of the Tripartite Audience-Media-Society Relationship according to Melvin Defleur

 

Historical Period	Psychological Operations Tools
From the contemporary era to the period before the World War II	Books, magazines and newspapers
The years of World War II	Books, magazines, newspapers, telephone and radio
The Cold War years	Books, magazines, newspapers, telephone and radio
The post-Cold War era	Books, magazines, newspapers, telephone, cell phones, radio and television, e-mails, CDs and the internet

 

Psychological Operations Tools

 

The Islamic Republic of Iran and Countering the Soft War

 

Nowadays, merely the tangible and military capacity does not constitute power, rather, the intangible elements such as religion, beliefs, education and communication are considered as the influential sources of power. In today’s international arena, the impact of soft power is greater than that of hard power. This is the case with Iran since the West and the enemies of the Islamic Revolution are afraid of this country not because of its military or economic power, rather, their main concern is Iran’s soft power by which it seeks to introduce a new model for governing societies.

 

As far as the most important action of the government of the Islamic Republic of Iran in increasing the soft power and influencing other societies and governments is concerned, our statesmen should seek to gain power by increasing political, scientific, economic, industrial, cultural and social capacities inside the country as well as increasing the level of welfare and satisfaction of citizens. Therefore, the government must pay more attention to these issues. Finally, the most important reasons for using soft power can be summarized as follows:

 

1) Unlike military and economic strategies that are subject to the changing conditions of the battlefield and the competitive arena of the market, cultural and social strategies remain relatively stable due to the relative stability of the cultural and social spheres.

 

Therefore, it can be argued that the main elements of this strategy are less likely to be subject to change and will remain as the axis of socio-cultural activities for a long time.

 

2) This strategy requires studying the issue before making any plans. Also, it includes the knowledge of the cultural and religious environment of societies which can be useful in the future, i.e., it will determine the conditions for using other powers.

 

The media war is a kind of peaceful and humanitarian warfare in which sometimes the people who are being bombarded may be unaware of the existence of a big fight that is taking place in their society. A war that targets nations and their cultural and social foundations instead of statesmen. The more a country uses diverse and modern tools of communication technology that can influence the audience, the more successes it would achieve.

 

Reference: Pouyesh in Humanities and Education [A Scientific Quarterly]. Vol 1, No 1, Summer 2016, Pp 1-11.

Archive of The Enemies of the Islamic Revolution