---
title: U.S. Army and Joint Staff, Psychological Operations doctrine (1987-2013)
url: https://propagandaarchive.org/about/us-psyop-doctrine/
description: 'U.S. Army and Joint Staff psychological operations doctrine (1987-2013) as a primary source: what it says, how it worked, and how it is assessed.'
section: About and doctrine
---

![Illustration: a First World War field-intelligence collage of trench maps, wireless transmission logs and aerial reconnaissance photographs.](https://propagandaarchive.org/static/generated/detail/hero-wwi.jpg)

[About](https://propagandaarchive.org/about/)

# U.S. Army and Joint Staff, Psychological Operations doctrine (1987-2013)

In brief

The U.S. military's field manuals and joint publications on psychological operations (PSYOP, called Military Information Support Operations from 2010) are the official, public-domain statement of how one government's armed forces plan, approve and deliver persuasion aimed at foreign audiences, and they can be read against the operations that came to light.

On this page

- [The source](https://propagandaarchive.org/about/us-psyop-doctrine/#the-source)
- [Context](https://propagandaarchive.org/about/us-psyop-doctrine/#context)
- [What it says](https://propagandaarchive.org/about/us-psyop-doctrine/#what-it-says)
- [How it worked in practice](https://propagandaarchive.org/about/us-psyop-doctrine/#how-it-worked-in-practice)
- [Techniques in this archive's taxonomy](https://propagandaarchive.org/about/us-psyop-doctrine/#techniques-in-this-archive-s-taxonomy)
- [Reception and criticism](https://propagandaarchive.org/about/us-psyop-doctrine/#reception-and-criticism)
- [Same-standard note](https://propagandaarchive.org/about/us-psyop-doctrine/#same-standard-note)
- [Sources](https://propagandaarchive.org/about/us-psyop-doctrine/#sources)

On this page

**In one line:** the U.S. military's field manuals and joint publications on psychological operations (PSYOP, called Military Information Support Operations from 2010) are the official, public-domain statement of how one government's armed forces plan, approve and deliver persuasion aimed at foreign audiences, and they can be read against the operations that came to light.

## The source

- **FM 33-1, *Psychological Operations*** (Headquarters, Department of the Army; editions include August 1979 and 1987). Superseded.
- **FM 3-05.301 (FM 33-1-1), *Psychological Operations Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures*** (Department of the Army and U.S. Marine Corps as MCRP 3-40.6A, December 2003). Distribution-restricted at issue; later published by the Federation of American Scientists and Public Intelligence.
- **FM 3-05.30 (MCRP 3-40.6), *Psychological Operations*** (April 2005).
- **FM 3-53, *Military Information Support Operations*** (4 January 2013; Change 1, 28 June 2013).
- **Joint Publication 3-13.2, *Psychological Operations*** (Joint Chiefs of Staff, 7 January 2010), reissued as **JP 3-13.2, *Military Information Support Operations*** (20 December 2011).
- Language: English. **Rights on this archive:** U.S. government works, public domain in the United States; quoted directly where the wording was verified.

## Context

The U.S. Army's modern psychological warfare lineage runs from the Second World War, when the Anglo-American Psychological Warfare Division of Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force (PWD/SHAEF), headed by U.S. Brig. Gen. Robert A. McClure, ran leaflet and radio operations against German forces in Northwest Europe. The Army later codified the work in the FM 33-1 series; the 2003-2005 manuals were written during the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, with PSYOP in the special operations community.

In 2010 the Defense Department replaced the term "psychological operations" with "Military Information Support Operations" (MISO). The 2010 memo, as quoted by DefenseScoop, said "the term psyop tends to connote propaganda, brainwashing, manipulation, and deceit." The Army returned its branch and units to the PSYOP name under U.S. Army Special Operations Command guidance dated 27 October 2017 (Army Times, 6 November 2017), while joint terminology kept MISO. On 2 December 2025 Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth signed a memorandum directing the department to change MISO back to "psychological operations" department-wide by the end of fiscal year 2026 (DefenseScoop, 9 December 2025).

## What it says

**PSYOP is defined by a foreign audience and a behavioral goal.** The Defense Department dictionary definition carried in these manuals describes PSYOP as "planned operations to convey selected information and indicators to foreign audiences to influence their emotions, motives, objective reasoning, and ultimately the behavior of foreign governments, organizations, groups, and individuals."

**A sequenced process.** FM 3-05.301 organizes all PSYOP work into seven phases: planning; target audience analysis; series development; product development and design; approval; production, distribution and dissemination; and evaluation. In summary, target audience analysis studies a defined group's conditions and susceptibility before messages are written, and evaluation later measures whether its behavior changed.

**Approval runs up a chain.** Approval is a formal phase: products must fit approved objectives and themes, and a higher authority decides what may be disseminated, which the manuals present as the link between messaging and policy.

**White, gray and black.** The manuals classify products by attribution. In their definitions, white products are acknowledged by the sponsor, gray products do not identify their source, and black products are attributed to a source other than the true one. FM 3-05.30 states that military PSYOP most commonly uses white products by policy and practice. This is the same three-color scheme this archive uses in [Doctrine (working definition)](https://propagandaarchive.org/about/working-definition/).

**Content note:** Wartime leaflet showing gas-masked soldiers, an explosion and a biohazard sign, with a threat of retribution. This object is shown as it was published. [Why](https://propagandaarchive.org/about/#as-it-was) ![Two-sided leaflet in English and Arabic showing gas-masked soldiers before a fireball and a biohazard sign, under the words Do not use weapons of mass destruction](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/iraq-leaflet-do-not-use-wmd-2003.jpg)

*Coalition leaflet in English and Arabic warning Iraqi units not to use weapons of mass destruction, dropped from Coalition aircraft and displayed in a U.S. Navy release of 24 February 2003. The text names "Coalition forces" as its source. U.S. Navy (VIRIN 030224-D-0000X-001), via Wikimedia Commons. Public domain (U.S. government work).*

**Truthful information as a stated principle.** The 2010 renaming memo states that PSYOP activities "rely on truthful information, credibly conveyed."

**No U.S. audiences.** JP 3-13.2 (2010) states a "requirement that US PSYOP forces will not target US citizens at any time, in any location globally, or under any circumstances." It allows PSYOP units to support civil authorities in domestic disasters under Secretary of Defense authority, where their role is limited to broadcasting public information.

## How it worked in practice

**Legal framework for U.S. audiences.** The Smith-Mundt Act (U.S. Information and Educational Exchange Act of 1948) authorized State Department information programs for foreign publics. Amendments in 1972 and 1985 (the Zorinsky amendment) tightened a ban on distributing that material inside the United States. The Smith-Mundt Modernization Act of 2012, enacted as Section 1097 of the FY2013 National Defense Authorization Act (Public Law 112-239), let the State Department and the Broadcasting Board of Governors (renamed the U.S. Agency for Global Media in 2018) make their foreign-audience material available domestically, while keeping the bar on using those funds to influence U.S. public opinion (Congressional Research Service, R42754). Smith-Mundt governs State and USAGM; the military's bar on targeting U.S. audiences rests on Defense Department doctrine and policy.

**WWII: SHAEF leaflets.** PWD/SHAEF initiated *Nachrichten für die Truppe*, produced jointly by the British Political Intelligence Department and the American OSS: a daily German-language newspaper for German troops, first dropped on 25 April 1944 and delivered by American aircraft in quantities reported at 250,000 to 750,000 a night.

![Front page of a German-language newspaper dated 9 April 1945 with a map and headlines about Allied advances](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/nachrichten-fuer-die-truppe-1945.jpg)

*Front page of Nachrichten für die Truppe, No. 358, 9 April 1945, produced by the British Political Intelligence Department with the U.S. Office of Strategic Services for SHAEF's Psychological Warfare Division and dropped by the U.S. Eighth Air Force. Photograph by Brunswyk, via Wikimedia Commons. Public domain (U.S. government work and expired UK Crown copyright).*

**Vietnam: Chieu Hoi and "Wandering Soul".** Chieu Hoi ("Open Arms") was a South Vietnamese government amnesty program begun in 1963 with U.S. support. Leaflets and loudspeaker broadcasts promised safe conduct, rewards and training to Viet Cong and North Vietnamese soldiers who "rallied" to the government. Operation Wandering Soul, run by the U.S. Army's 6th PSYOP Battalion with the U.S. Navy, broadcast recordings such as "Ghost Tape Number Ten" from helicopters and boats in late 1969 and 1970. The tapes drew on the belief that the souls of dead left unburied away from home wander in suffering, and used funeral music and voices urging listeners to go home.

![Vietnamese-language Chieu Hoi poster with photographs of a returnee, his family and a safe-conduct pass](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/chieu-hoi-phu-yen-2400-1966.jpg)

*Chieu Hoi poster SP-1647, "Ralliers in Phu Yen Have Risen to Over 2,400!", 1966, produced by the Joint U.S. Public Affairs Office (JUSPAO) printing section for the South Vietnamese Chieu Hoi program. U.S. National Archives, Still Picture Branch, 306-VP-3-1647 (Records of the U.S. Information Agency, RG 306). Public domain (U.S. government work).*

**Iraq, 2005: paid placements.** On 30 November 2005 the *Los Angeles Times* (Mark Mazzetti and Borzou Daragahi) reported that articles written by U.S. military information operations troops were translated into Arabic and placed in Baghdad newspapers, often as news rather than paid advertising, through a Washington contractor, the Lincoln Group. Military spokesmen said the articles were factual and meant to get the truth out (Voice of America, 3 December 2005). An internal review led by Rear Adm. Scott Van Buskirk was reported in 2006 to have found no violation of law or of the contract or military rules; it was not released.

**Online accounts, 2017-2022.** In August 2022 Graphika and the Stanford Internet Observatory published *Unheard Voice*, analyzing accounts that Twitter and Meta had removed for platform manipulation and coordinated inauthentic behavior. The report described an interconnected set of accounts across eight platforms promoting pro-Western narratives in the Middle East and Central Asia over almost five years, using AI-generated profile photos, front media outlets and coordinated posting; some personas shared sites whose footers stated they were sponsored by U.S. Central Command. The report found that most posts received few likes or retweets. In September 2022 the *Washington Post* reported that Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Colin Kahl ordered a review of the department's clandestine online psychological operations.

**Philippines, 2020-2021.** On 14 June 2024 Reuters (Chris Bing and Joel Schectman) reported that the U.S. military ran a covert campaign, begun in 2020 and continued into mid-2021, using fake social media accounts, at least 300 on Twitter, to spread doubt about China's Sinovac vaccine and other Chinese aid in the Philippines and elsewhere in Southeast Asia, including claims aimed at Muslim audiences about pork gelatin. A June 2024 Defense Department document to Philippine officials, later made public by former presidential spokesman Harry Roque, said the department had "made some missteps in our COVID related messaging."

## Techniques in this archive's taxonomy

- [Astroturfing](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/astroturf/): *Unheard Voice* and the Reuters Philippines report both document fake personas with generated or borrowed identities presented as local voices.
- [Narrative laundering](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/narrative-laundering/): the Lincoln Group placements put military-written text into Iraqi newspapers under the appearance of local journalism; *Unheard Voice* describes front media outlets.
- [Disclosure theater](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/disclosure-theater/): in *Unheard Voice*, CENTCOM sponsorship appeared in website footers while the personas sharing the links presented as independent; in Iraq, reported disclaimers were often omitted.
- [Fear appeal](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/fear-appeal/): Wandering Soul used fear of the dead left unburied; the Philippines campaign, as Reuters reported it, sought to spread fear of Chinese vaccines.

## Reception and criticism

- **The Defense Department** states that PSYOP relies on truthful information and operates under an approval chain; Secretary Hegseth's 2025 memo says the PSYOP name aligns function with branding and removes confusion (DefenseScoop). Army authors have debated the naming itself (for example Cook and Cowan, "Psychological Operations versus Military Information Support Operations," Army University Press).
- **Civil-liberties critics**, including the ACLU, have raised concern that military psychological operations may reach or be aimed at U.S. citizens. Members of Congress questioned the Iraq placements in December 2005 (NPR, 2 December 2005), and officers quoted by the *Los Angeles Times* objected to the practice.
- **Philippine officials and legislators** raised the 2020-21 campaign as a public-health and sovereignty issue. Chinese state media cited *Unheard Voice* as evidence of Western information operations (*China Daily*, 13 September 2022).
- **Researchers:** Graphika and SIO report that the covert accounts drew little engagement; a Lawfare analysis describes a later shift toward paid advertising.

## Same-standard note

This archive applies the same color and technique labels to U.S. PSYOP that it applies to other militaries' influence concepts, such as Russia's [Soviet and Russian military theory, Reflexive control and information confrontation (1960s-2016)](https://propagandaarchive.org/about/russian-reflexive-control/) and China's [People's Liberation Army, the Three Warfares (2003)](https://propagandaarchive.org/about/pla-three-warfares/). The *Unheard Voice* authors describe the tactics they found as common to state-run influence operations. Differences on the record: U.S. doctrine is published in full, states a preference for attributed (white) products and a bar on targeting U.S. citizens, and the covert cases above became public through platform takedowns, journalism and a Pentagon acknowledgment rather than through doctrine.

## Sources

1. Department of the Army, FM 33-1, *Psychological Operations* (Washington, 1979 and 1987 editions).
2. Department of the Army, FM 3-05.301, *Psychological Operations Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures* (December 2003). https://irp.fas.org/doddir/army/fm3-05-301.pdf
3. Department of the Army, FM 3-05.30, *Psychological Operations* (April 2005). https://irp.fas.org/doddir/army/fm3-05-30.pdf
4. Department of the Army, FM 3-53, *Military Information Support Operations* (4 January 2013).
5. Joint Chiefs of Staff, JP 3-13.2, *Psychological Operations* (7 January 2010). https://irp.fas.org/doddir/dod/jp3-13-2.pdf ; and JP 3-13.2, *Military Information Support Operations* (20 December 2011).
6. DefenseScoop, "Hegseth issues directive to bring back 'psyop' terminology," 9 December 2025. https://defensescoop.com/2025/12/09/hegseth-memo-psyop-miso-psychological-operations/
7. Army Times, "The Army's psychological operations community is getting its name back," 6 November 2017. https://www.armytimes.com/news/your-army/2017/11/06/the-armys-psychological-operations-community-is-getting-its-name-back/
8. Congressional Research Service, *U.S. Public Diplomacy: Legislative Proposals to Amend Prohibitions on Disseminating Materials to Domestic Audiences*, R42754 (2012). https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/R42754
9. Herbert A. Friedman, "The Wandering Soul Psyop Tape of Vietnam" and "Chieu Hoi Program," psywarrior.com. https://www.psywarrior.com/wanderingsoul.html
10. Mark Mazzetti and Borzou Daragahi, "U.S. Military Covertly Pays to Run Stories in Iraqi Press," *Los Angeles Times*, 30 November 2005.
11. Voice of America, "Military Says Articles in Iraqi Newspapers Were to 'Get the Truth Out'," 3 December 2005. https://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/news/iraq/2005/12/iraq-051203-voa01.htm
12. Graphika and Stanford Internet Observatory, *Unheard Voice: Evaluating five years of pro-Western covert influence operations* (August 2022). https://purl.stanford.edu/nj914nx9540
13. "Pentagon opens sweeping review of clandestine psychological operations," *Washington Post*, 19 September 2022 (syndicated: https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2022/sep/19/pentagon-opens-sweeping-review-of-clandestine-psyc/).
14. Chris Bing and Joel Schectman, "Pentagon ran secret anti-vax campaign to undermine China during pandemic," Reuters Special Report, 14 June 2024.
15. Rappler, "US told Philippines it made 'missteps' in secret anti-vax propaganda effort," July 2024. https://www.rappler.com/world/us-canada/united-states-told-philippines-made-missteps-secret-anti-vax-propaganda-effort/
16. Lawfare, "Fewer Bots, More Ads: The Pentagon's Evolving Online Influence Campaigns." https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/fewer-bots--more-ads--the-pentagon-s-evolving-online-influence-campaigns