Psychological warfare

A psychological operation (often abbreviated psyop) is a planned operation designed to convey selected information and indicators to foreign or domestic audiences to influence their emotions, motives, and objective reasoning, and ultimately the behavior of a government, group, event, or individual. The aim is to induce confusions, to persuade, or to change the behavior of the target audience. In essence, it is a form of influence campaign that employs psychological tactics to achieve specific strategic goals. The term is commonly used in military, intelligence, and political contexts. In Hebrew, a psychological operation is known as מופע פסיכולוגי (mofa psikholgi). In Russian, it is referred to as психологическая операция (psikhologicheskaya operatsiya), and in Arabic, it is called عملية نفسية (amaliya nafsiyya). Psychological operations can be employed to support public information campaigns, to deceive enemies, or to influence the morale and decisions of friendly or neutral groups. They can involve various media, including broadcasting, leaflets, the internet, and other forms of communication, and can be used in both wartime and peacetime.