We went through the details, simplified, of first-generation wars, and we saw the Spartan military formations that were impossible to break through, and we went through second-generation wars with "Daniel Theron".. and we carried on with third-generation wars and met "Jalal al-Din al-Dasuqi" and "Joul Jamal" and "Eli Cohen".. the links to these subjects are in the first, second, third and fourth reference for anyone who wants to go back to them...
We saw in third-generation wars that technology had become an essential element in them.. and we saw that you can overcome a particular technology with the quality of your men, good training and a smart plan.. without that preventing you from in turn surpassing them technologically and striving to get the best, always..
Across the three generations of war, psychological warfare is a main, important and vital element.. and that was very clearly visible in one of the models of third-generation war, which is the October War, the one they call the "Yom Kippur War"...
67 was a battle.. part of a war whose history goes back even further than the Tripartite Aggression.. and in 67 there was a defeat in one battle of a long, continuous war...
In 67 the two media machines, the Egyptian and the Israeli, went to work with force and violence.. the Egyptian newspapers raised the morale of the people and the soldiers with headlines of the type "we have shot down such-and-such enemy aircraft" and "our forces are advancing inside Israel".. and Israel was writing in its newspapers that the Israeli forces had reached Cairo.. and the truth is that this could actually have happened and they could have entered Cairo.. were it not for the campaign those newspapers led at the time...
This campaign, any ignorant, narrow-minded person today can be heard calling it "media lies".. and "the lies of the media".. and the empty talk that circulates on social media.. while in fact its scientific name is "psychological warfare" and "War Propaganda"..
"Karel C. Berkhoff" tells us about it in his book "Motherland in Danger" — that it is "necessary" and "must be done".. even if the opposite of it is proven later..
And it is enough, to be sure of the soundness of this information.. that you read what the "New York Times" wrote in the picture attached to this post.. in the issue of 8 October.. two days after we crossed and destroyed the Bar Lev Line, with a broad front-page headline:
"Israel responds forcefully deep inside Egypt".. and: "Israel destroyed the Syrian air defence"...!
And the truth is that the only air defence the Egyptian eagles crushed at the time was the Israeli air defence itself.. which was completely disabled after Egyptian intelligence obtained its codes.. and neutralized it...
But that New York Times headline, its name is "War Propaganda"..
The 67 battle ended and we entered the stage that came after it.. the stage in which the terrifying Israeli propaganda machine shone.. with an unceasing torrent of news and rumours and films and stories, about the heroism of the Israeli army, and about its invincible forces.. and about the strongest defensive barrier in history, the "Bar Lev Line", which cost them close to half a billion dollars.. and that was a fantastical sum at the time..
"The line that cannot be defeated".. and "the strongest chain of fortifications in history" — you used to hear that in the Israeli and international media.. and there were spies and cells spreading it among the Egyptians.. a line that cannot be defeated.. it is impossible for you to ever cross it.. Sinai is lost..
And the Israeli plan succeeded in penetrating the hearts and chests.. and we always remember Napoleon's words: "Wars are decided in the breasts of men, before they are decided on the battlefields".. remember that sentence all the time.. because we will always come back to it...
This called for the Egyptians to wage a counter-psychological war and build a counter media machine...
At the time, Egyptian intelligence realized that the war was almost being decided in the breasts of men.. and if that happened.. then nothing would remain but for Israel to make one more sortie and enter Cairo, the city of the Fatimids...
Egyptian intelligence met with the great thinkers, writers, artists and men of religion.. was it imaginable then that it was an honour and a privilege and patriotism for you to carry out a mission for your country's intelligence or to cooperate with it?..
Yes, by God.. it was an honour and a privilege for you to work with the highest security apparatus in your country against the enemy.. before "Hazem Abdel Azim" and "Bassem Youssef" taught us that it is a shame and bad manners and filth.. and that the greatest honour of all is for you to sit with terrorists in the Four Seasons or Doha or Ankara...
Anyway.. Egyptian intelligence met with these people.. the Egyptian elite of the time.. and asked them to raise the people's morale.. your words and your writing reach the soldiers.. they enter every home.. you must enter with us the arena of psychological warfare...
And the Egyptian media began a counter-campaign...
And a torrent of narratives, and books, and articles and series, and radio and television programmes was unleashed, flooding the media and filling people's ears and eyes and minds, in a way that had no equal...
And the Egyptians began gathering around the radio to follow the series "The Guard Dogs" by Mr. "Kamal Ismail", which Mr. "Nour El-Demerdash" picked up and turned into a television series, so its success and impact doubled, and "Mahmoud Sobhy" wrote the programme "The Family of Marzouk Afandi", a comic acting sketch between "Marzouk Afandi" and one of his family members, in which he discusses with him on the radio some wrong behaviour he sees, "such as publishing the locations or movements of military relatives in public places like cafés" or "spreading rumours".. or anything of that sort..
And Mr. "Mohamed Said" launched his programme "Soldiers of God".. and five-part series appeared such as "The Ambush" and "Struggle to the End"...
As for the great Mr. "Raafat El-Khayyat", he wrote "Mission 69", and Mr. "Ali Issa" presented three successful programmes recounting stories of espionage and heroism and psychological warfare.. and "Fayek Ismail" presented the series "The Thief and the Spy".. and the film "Giants of the Seas" by El-Sayed Bedeir returned to the screens.. and a campaign of series and films about the heroics of the "War of Attrition" began.. and dozens of the elite and patriotic writers set off with their pens, like "Anis Mansour" and "Saleh Morsi" and "Abdel Salam Dawood".. and the great Mr. "Raafat El-Khayyat", who wrote "Mission 69", and Mr. "Ali Issa" presented three successful programmes recounting stories of espionage and heroism and psychological warfare.. and "Fayek Ismail" presented the series "The Thief and the Spy".. and the film "Giants of the Seas" by El-Sayed Bedeir returned to the screens.. and the great, late "Maher Abdel Hamid" began writing weekly articles in Al-Ahram newspaper, to introduce the role of the General Intelligence and its importance and its gravity.. and they inflamed people's enthusiasm more and more..
Anyone who lived through this period can tell you.. that after people had had a feeling of defeat and shame.. they began to ask again, "when will we fight?"
This psychological warfare did not have an effect on the Egyptians only.. no.. it had an effect on dozens of spies and agents.. whom Israel had recruited.. in every part of the Arab world.. and a feeling of shame began to grow inside them, and their sense of patriotism and love for the land they belonged to grew greater.. which is the natural feeling of any "naturally sound-minded" human being..
This led to a change and a reversal of the positions of some agents, who were also working against other Arab states such as Syria and Lebanon and Algeria and the Gulf states, and hesitation began to envelop them and they stopped cooperating with the enemy completely..
This psychological warfare — Israel itself felt its danger.. so "The Jerusalem Post" wrote a long article in its issue of 26/4/1972.. warning of the result of the campaign being led by the Egyptian media to spread enthusiasm among the people and enlighten them and urge them to stand behind their army.. in addition to the fact that it was beginning to weaken the morale of the Israeli army and people...
And the Egyptian media war continued side by side with the intelligence war, and Egyptian intelligence was able to obtain the code of the Israeli air defence.. and to disable the American early warning station.. in two operations of the utmost difficulty and brilliance.. you will find them in the fifth reference if you would like to read them..
And this psychological, intelligence and technical war continued until the moment of the crossing...
And after 1973.. Israeli intelligence realized that the Egyptian media machine had been one of the most important pillars of the victory...
And third-generation wars take a wide leap.. as smart bombs and missiles and drones and satellites and others enter them.. and their accuracy and destructive range increase.. without ever dispensing with the intelligence role, nor with the quality of the men and how well they are trained...
This is an explanation and a model of third-generation wars and the role of intelligence and psychological warfare in them.. and this differs entirely from fourth-generation wars, which we shall see later, God willing...
And our talk has a remainder....
---------
References
---------
1 - https://goo.gl/hAAtYn
2 - https://goo.gl/T5N4NS
3 - https://goo.gl/uAodph
4 - https://goo.gl/kys7kn
5 - https://goo.gl/Q1MN4D
6 - Karel C. Berkhoff, Motherland in Danger: Soviet Propaganda during World War II..
7 - Garth Jowett and Victoria O'Donnell (2006), Propaganda and Persuasion, 4th ed. Sage Publications, p. 7..
8 - Bar-Simon Tov, Yaacov. The Israeli-Egyptian War of Attrition, 1969–70. New York: Columbia University Press, 1980..
9 - Zeev Maoz, Defending the Holy Land, A Critical Analysis of Israel's Security and Foreign Policy, University of Michigan Press, 2006, pages 244–246..
10 - Ross, Sheryl Tuttle. "Understanding Propaganda" Journal of Aesthetic Education, Vol. 36..
11 - Uri Dan, Ariel Sharon: An Intimate Portrait. Michel Lafon Publishing, 2006. Page 50...