Army Colonel Lawrence Dietz: PsyWar, Zig Ziglar & Influence Ops in the Battle for Hearts & Minds

Lawrence (Larry) Dietz, is a nationally recognized expert in the area of Psychological Warfare, Cyber Warfare, and Information Operations. Larry is a former military intelligence officer with the U.S. Army, and was at one time, the Officer in Charge of Strategic Intelligence with the 7th PsyOp Group as well as the commander of the 12th PSYOP Battalion, and Deputy Commander of the Combined Joint Information Campaign Task Force, in Sarajevo, Bosnia. Dietz was also an Information Operations officer with USSOCOM (The United States Special Operations Command), and he is the author of the authoritative blog on Psychological Operations, The PSYOP Regimental Blog.

Sun Tzu said, “Hence to fight and conquer in all your battles is not supreme excellence; supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy's resistance without fighting." To accomplish this, the military uses Information Ops or Influence Ops, what Dietz refers to as "non-kinetic fires," and what the Office of the Secretary of Defense characterizes as "the integrated employment, during military operations, of information-related capabilities (IRCs) ... to influence, disrupt, corrupt, or usurp the decision making of adversaries while protecting our own."

The IRCs or the "tools" of Information Operations according to Dietz include PsyOps along with Social Media Disinformation, Electronic Warfare (signals and comms disruption), and Cyber Warfare. Effective IO also relies on the application of a number of soft skills to decimate the reasoning, behavior, and actions of an enemy nation including Psychology, Media, and Cultural & Linguistic Skills, however, one of the most important skill sets that the tactical PsyOps team can leverage is marketing and sales techniques. So integral is sales proficiency to the in-the-trenches execution of PsyOps, that Dietz would often have his men study the methods of the masters of sales training, arming his PsyWarriors with the legendary Zig Ziglar's "Secrets of Closing the Sale."

Links

Lawrence "Larry" Dietz: https://www.dataprivacylaw.com/
The PSYOP Regimental Blog: http://psyopregiment.blogspot.com/
Cyber Influence: Cyber War & Psychological Operations: https://bit.ly/3lDnIBd
PsyOps: https://bit.ly/3lEwL52
Secrets of Closing the Sales by Zig Ziglar: https://amzn.to/2YYzw7A