Political Warfare
Jan 01, 1988
By Frank Gaffney, Jr.
Samuel Adams: Founding Father, American patriot, and accomplished political warrior.
Political warfare is the art of heartening one's friends and disheartening one's enemies. It makes use of ideas, words, images, and deeds to compel or convince friends, foes, or neutrals into cooperation or acquiescence. Effective political warriors know that the best way to prevail in modern ideological conflict is not through killing, but through persuasion, cooption, and influence.
Given the U.S.'s superiority in conventional military power, our adversaries frequently seek to use the techniques of political and psychlogical conflict against us. In so doing, they mount a serious threat to the security of the United States. This country must mount a systematic and sustained political warfare effort, just as President Reagan did against the Soviet Union during the Cold War. Indeed, the American experience with political war stretches all the way back to our Founding, when patriots like Samuel Adams used the power of the pen to stir up sentiments in the ever-more-restless American colonies.
The Center for Security Policy seeks to help our leaders, policymakers, and warfighters weaponize and utilize the techniques of political warfare to prevail in their battles against foreign ideological opponents - from Islamofacists to Communists - who wish the United States harm. This webpage is for those who wish to educate themselves about political warfare and want to use these tools to acheive victory in the War for the Free World.
