فصلنامه مطالعات عملیات روانی
پیاپی 19 (بهار و تابستان 1387)

Public opinion has a very significant value for the States in the contemporary world. Therefore¡ in order to control and to lead the public opinion¡ as well as the people''s belief and attitude they make lots of efforts to discover and realize the process of shaping public opinion. To this end¡ the governments use several ways of opinion poll and social sampling. Harmonizing with the public opinion to amplify or shifting its effects through informative efforts are some of the government''s and mass media stakeholder''s choices to manage the public opinion. Mobilization of public opinion is a social¡ psychological and collective phenomenon; it is in fact a common view and assessment of a group on an interested issue and special occasion like war which is separated among the people and is accepted by them. The public opinion appears through pros and cons on a special act¡ view¡ person¡ and event and in the shape of a request¡ demand¡ suggestion and recommendation. This paper intends to survey on functions of mobilization of public opinion in the modern wars.

The threat underlying nuclear deterrence is that aggressive acts will be answered by nuclear weapons retaliation. If that threat lacks credibility¡ then deterrence is at least uncertain and perhaps impotent or inoperative. The following discussion views nuclear deterrence credibility from the standpoint of psychological interactions needed to make deterrence work.
If Party «A» is to successfully deter Party «B» ¡ certain conditions must be satisfied (unless an ambiguous situation is desired): (a) Party «A» must understand how Party «B» thinks and behaves so that «A» can determine how to motivate «B» not to act.
(b) Party «B» must actually think and behave consistent with that understood by Party «A».
(c) There must be no possibility for misunderstanding between Party «A» and Party «B» so that «B» knows exactly what acts will provoke retaliation; believes in certain retaliation; and realizes the consequences would be clearly unacceptable compared to potential rewards from the «prohibited» act.
These three conditions involve human communications¡ human assessments¡ and projected human behavior - none of which can be expected to be perfect. At best¡ deterrence is an imperfect undertaking and is not without risks. In addition¡ any uncertainty or ambiguity makes those risks incalculable.
There are several hurdles to overcome in attempting to meet conditions (a) through (c) above for successful deterrence.
- To resist the temptation to believe that others think and behave as we do;
- Critical military decisions usually evolve through some process of collective thinking and assessment;
- rejecting the expectation that the deterred party will always be wise¡ rational¡ and prudent in its decision making¡ and last not the least¡
- accepting the fact that the best deterrence will be less than perfect.

Psychological operation is mostly referred as psychological warfare and moral or ideological warfare. However¡ it is often assumed as propaganda. This paper attempts to discuss the very concept of military psychological warfare along with the three above mentioned concepts. Communality and differences as well as ends¡ ways and means¡ including propaganda and advertisement¡ of these concepts are focused in this paper too. Then the techniques and methods of military psychological operations in the contemporary world are explained. Finally the paper concludes with introduction of some executive tactics to preparations regarding military psychological operations in crisis and war time.

Importance of information during the 21st Century is a fact that nobody can deny it. In fact¡ one can observe the proper role of information in eruption of conflicts in the current international system. The purpose of this paper is to introduce a theory on information operations to limit the implications and to lessen the lethality of military operations at the time of counter insurgency operations. In the first section¡ this paper focuses on four elements of information operations as follows: psychological warfare¡ civil-military operations¡ public affairs and computer network operations. Then a case study on information operation is simulated and the concept of operation involved in that case is discussed. However¡ it should be emphasized that the studied approach in this paper is based on new strategy of the US army in counter insurgency operations in Iraq. This paper indicates the significance of awareness and command of information operation and use of civil-military operations as an instrument for enhancement of psychological and civil military operations and public affairs which all are needed to better understand and to deal with the modern war and battlefields in future.

The aim of this paper is to survey on the role of governments in neutralizing psychological operations. Thus the main question is: how the states can neutralize their rivals and enemies psychological operations? To answer this question the following hypothesis is tested in this paper: by utilizing long term methods the governments can neutralize psychological operation to a much extent. Based on this hypothesis the subject of psychological operation is a matter that the people must think on it. On the other hand¡ as many thinkers of telecommunication sciences believe¡ propaganda is actually strengthening the current beliefs. Therefore¡ while due to its technological progress¡ the mass media waves seem uncontrollable¡ by use of long term scientific and methodological ways¡ the governments can affect its process. Also¡ the alternative hypothesis is that the government''s activities in short term and with out due regard to the scientific and methodological ways would not be successful. Finally some elements like political psychology¡ national consensus¡ relativism and dogmatism¡ political socialization¡ mass media¡ political behavior and area which are useful in neutralization of psychological operations are discussed in this paper.

Influencing mass media throughout the world as well as the intelligence system of the USA which is severely controlled by the Zionist investors¡ the Zionist regime has been attempting to distort the international public opinion about the peaceful nuclear activities of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Focusing on the relevant intentions and purposes of the Zionist regime in opposing the Iranian peaceful nuclear capabilities¡ this paper aims to study the regime''s ways and means of psychological operations. Although the regime is using roughly all available instruments to change the international public opinion in this regard¡ the Islamic Republic of Iran is also enlightening and defending itself by the legitimate media mechanisms. Finally some solutions are provided to oppose the Zionist Regime.

This paper aims to recognize and to predict the methods of the US psychological operations in the future wars with an emphasis on the deceive operations and also to propose some ways of coping with these. Therefore¡ using a descriptive method¡ the paper has benefited from the advantage of experts'' views on the field. Also it needs to mention that all required data and information are gathered by documentary method and finally to do a field research¡ 200 military commanders and the heads of cultural divisions of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps are questioned as the group of sampling.

Iran and Iraq has a long history of religious and cultural relationship along with much commonality in these fields. However¡ some people motivated by a narrow minded approach based on the ideology of Ba''th Party against Iran¡ some people call the current friendly relationship between the two countries as influence on¡ interfere in and even Iranian occupation of Iraq¡ therefore¡ they attempt to prevent strengthening of good relationship and cooperation between the two countries with any cost. This paper intends to explore the background¡ nature and purposes of the relevant political trends as well as their methods of psychological operations against Iran. In fact¡ this paper shows the destructive role of these political players in constructing a new Iraq in the aftermath of Saddam''s era on one hand¡ and wishes of the brotherhood trends to realize the aim of strengthening Islamic and human relationship between the two nations on the other.