Aside from the billions of dollars spent on military hardware like planes, submarines, aircraft carriers and state of the art missiles, militaries and armed forces of the United States of America has also relied on military psychology to further boost its war time efforts to finish of battles and gather intelligence.
This form of war strategy is very effective and applied to captured prisoners of war but the sad thing is that military psychological techniques and strategies usually is accompanied by torture. It is a part of the three elements needed to break down a POW’s conviction, Psychology, Torture and Interrogation.
This has been very much in use in the Vietnam war. Where in captured communist rebels would be subjected to psychological strategies to find out the location of their bunkers and camps. Unfortunately, the rebels had the same idea. Captured American soldiers would tell horrid tales of torture and humiliation in the hands of their interrogators psychologically breaking them down bit by bit.
As weapons have been technologically developed, using laser targeting, satellite guidance and unmanned surveillance systems, military psychology has also developed their methods and strategies. As each country has made their armed forces stronger, so much more so for the United States Army.
United States is on one of its biggest wars right now, the “War on Terrorism.” One of the defenses used by the American armed forces and security is military psychology. Advances in different forms have been developed and utilized to catch and prevent terrorism to happen again.
The September 11 attack alone can be considered as a psychological strategy done by terrorists instilling fear and panic in the hearts of American people. These are propagandas used to weaken and divide the Americans and on a psychological plane, it has somewhat made its point. Not only did it kill thousands of Americans it has also made them think about their vulnerability.
US securities have done their own homework. This includes profiling the enemy. Many psychological studies have been done on face recognition. Once perfected, this is a big help in surveillance and prevention of infiltration. This researches has drawn heavily from psychological knowledge of the military psychology track.
Military psychology has also developed various techniques and strategies in how to muddle a persons mind during interrogation making them confused and disoriented. This includes placing bags over the heads of the interrogated. They are made to raise their hands and spread their legs for a long period of time. Other techniques used lately would be, noise bombardment, sleep deprivation, food deprivation and being brainwashed and mentally tortured.
Another latest development in military psychology is their statistical prediction of behavior. Given many names already, this development probe through huge amounts of data on a suspected person in order to ‘predict possible terrorists by following a lifetime of seemingly innocent movements through electronic paper trails, for example; academic transcripts, prescription drugs, telephone calls, driving licenses, airline tickets, mortgage payments, parking permits, banking accounts and records, emails, website visits and credit card purchases. Through this, the military would like to prove if a person is a threat to national security. Many feel though that this is an invasion of their privacy.
Military psychology is an important aspect of the military. It can help end wars faster and with less loss of life on both sides. As more and more technological and psychological advances has been develop, this may result to more peace and tranquility.
Military psychology though has been very controversial ever since it was used. But it is not the United States alone that uses military psychology. Armed forces from all over the world has seen its potential and has made studies and researches on how to make it more effective.
While we may never really know everything that is being done in camps. The latest developments in military psychology are surely being used to gain a foothold over the enemies. These are strategies not shown to everybody to have the advantage. The race for military supremacy through technology is not just about having the biggest guns and the best planes and tanks, its also about using mans greatest weapon, the mind. And sometimes, the mind can be used against itself.
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