Thursday, February 26, 2015

Flip Flops: Economic PSYOP


Influencing behavior takes many forms. Giving a people a way out is often one of the better, long term solutions. The theory goes if you can provide an acceptable alternative behavior that benefits the audience and supports your goals & objectives, you ought to try it.

The article on combat flip-flops (see: http://gizmodo.com/two-ex-army-rangers-believe-flip-flops-and-sarongs-will-1687822266, which is also the photo source) presents a pretty compelling argument.

PSYOP working in tandem with Civil Affairs and PAO would support these efforts and help turn insurgents into productive citizens.

Which leads perhaps to a more interesting question and that is – should the mission of PSYOP be expanded to include occupational and business training? PSYOP (MISO) Teams are in the best position to work face to face with local populations. While training foreign citizens has traditionally been the purview of Special Forces, perhaps the time has come to split that function out of SF and into a ‘gentler’ force thereby enabling SF to concentrate on more appropriate missions.

Reader comments encouraged.

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