Abstract
This chapter addresses some basic ethical questions about psychological operations (PSYOP). It defines PSYOP, then compares and contrasts it with both conventional military activities and contemporary information warfare. Then it briefly clarifies emerging public policy problems, outlines relevant legal particularities, and offers general policy considerations with regard to ethical considerations in its employment.
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- 1.
Allied Joint Doctrine for Information Operations AJP-3.10, Ch. I, §1.0102.
- 2.
For a definition see, for example, George Lucas, Ethics and Cyber Warfare: The quest for responsible security in the age of digital warfare (NY: Oxford University Press, 2017), 23.
- 3.
Jon Swaine “Georgia: Russia ‘conducting cyber war’”, The Telegraph, 11 August 2008.
- 4.
Laurie Blank, “Media Warfare, Propaganda and the Law of War,” in Soft War: The Ethics of Unarmed Conflict, ed. Michael L. Gross and Tamar Meisels (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017).
- 5.
For an early analysis, see Malcolm Nance, The Plot to Hack America: How Putin’s cyberspies and WikiLeaks tried to steal the 2016 election (New York: Skyhorse Publishing, 2016).
- 6.
See Lucas Ethics and Cyber Warfare, 31n14 for qualifications.
- 7.
Sarah Fainberg, “Russian Spetsnaz, Contractors and Volunteers in the Syrian Conflict,” Russie.Nie.Visions, 105, (December 2017): 8.
- 8.
We speak here of LOAC as the codification of JWT, while acknowledging that this is problematic.
- 9.
Michael L. Gross, Soft War: The ethics of unarmed conflict (NY: Cambridge University Press. 2017), 217.
- 10.
Shlomo Sher, “A Framework for Assessing Immorally Manipulative Marketing Tactics,” Journal of Business Ethics 102 (2011).
- 11.
See Gross Soft War, for the term “soft war.”
- 12.
Michael N. Schmitt (ed), Tallinn Manual on the International Law Applicable to Cyber Operations (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013) and Tallinn Manual 2.0 on the International Law Applicable to Cyber Operations (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2017).
- 13.
Tallinn, Rule 10.
- 14.
Tallinn, Rule 11 Comment 3.
- 15.
This is not to say that no Cyber or PSYOP campaign can constitute an “act of force,” but that absent physical damage, the threshold will be extremely hard to meet.
- 16.
Tallinn, Rule 9.
- 17.
Department of Defense Law of War Manual, 2015, 60.
- 18.
Tallinn Rule 9, comment 7.
- 19.
Joint Doctrine Manual, Psychological Operations. B-GJ-005-313/FP-001.
- 20.
Scot MacDonald, Propaganda and Information Warfare in the Twenty-First Century: Altered images and deception operations. (New York: Routledge, 2007), Ch. 4.
- 21.
10 USC §2241a.
- 22.
See Joint Publication 3–13; http://www.jcs.mil/Portals/36/Documents/Doctrine/pubs/jp3_13.pdf
- 23.
See NATO Psychological Operations Doctrine §V, 0112, the reservations on p VI, and especially Annex D §§2–3.
- 24.
See Gross Soft War, 218ff, for other notions of “proportional” response that may be applicable in this context.
- 25.
MacDonald, Propaganda, Ch. 9.
- 26.
Michael L. Gross, Moral Dilemmas of Modern War: Torture, Assassination, and blackmail in an age of asymmetric conflict (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 55.
- 27.
The views expressed in this chapter are those of the authors and do not reflect the official policy or position of the Department of Defense or the US government.
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Zelcer, M., VanPelt, G., Casey, D. (2018). Military Psychological Operations: Ethics and Policy Considerations. In: Boonin, D. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Philosophy and Public Policy. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-93907-0_9
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