Airborne leaflet propaganda is a form of psychological warfare in which leaflets (flyers) are scattered in the air. Military forces have used aircraft to drop leaflets to alter the behavior of people in enemy-controlled territory, sometimes in conjunction with air strikes. Humanitarian air missions, in cooperation with leaflet propaganda, can turn civilians against their leadership while preparing them for the arrival of enemy troops.
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There are six different functions of airborne leaflet propaganda that have been used over the past century:
Airborne leaflets have been used for military propaganda purposes at least since the 19th century. One early example is from the Franco-Prussian War when in October 1870 during the Siege of Paris a French balloon coming from the city dropped government proclamations over Prussian troops that stated the following (in German):
"Paris defies the enemy. The whole of France rallies. Death to the invaders. Foolish people, shall we always throttle one another for the pleasure and proudness of Kings? Glory and conquest are crimes; defeat brings hate and desire for vengeance. Only one war is just and holy; that of independence."[1]
Leaflet propaganda has been delivered by airplanes since the Italo-Turkish War of 1911-12.[2]
After World War I, Americans were skeptical due to the national consensus that America was pressured into WWI by false, manipulative propaganda laced with lies from both the British and the Germans. However, as J.A.C. Brown articulated, “propaganda is successful only when directed at those who are willing to listen, absorb the information, and if possible act on it, and this happens only when the other side is in a condition of lowered morale and is already losing the campaign”.[3] Therefore, the use of airborne leaflets was a way for WWII enemies to psychologically attack one another in a different way than in previous wars. Distribution of Airborne leaflet propaganda was used by both allied and Axis forces in the Second World War.[4]
Airborne leaflets printed during WWII were “factual, in the main truthful, and served (or so it was claimed) to create a reputation for reliability both in supplying information and refuting German accounts which we said to be untruthful”.[5] Also, these leaflets were distributed in many ways. “Secret agents actually within the enemy countries were called upon to help by distributing leaflets (often purporting to come from within Germany itself or from a neutral country), by writing slogans or attaching posters or slips of revolutionary nature to buildings, and by spreading those demoralizing rumors, to which people are much more susceptible when frustrated, perplexed, or kept in ignorance of what is actually going on”,[6] in addition to being released from planes, shells, and balloons. However, oftentimes the leaflets did not reach their intended targets because they were dropped over lakes, rural areas, etc. from such a high altitude.[4]
Although leaflets were seen as being an effective tactic in manipulating troops when morale was low, “during the early months of the war, leaflets or pamphlets were scattered over enemy territory by aircraft and balloons but it was more than doubtful whether these had any useful effect, their obvious defects being that few can have reached their targets and, being printed, they were sometimes out of date by the time they were ready to distribute. The front-line distribution of leaflets was quite another matter and these were dropped by aircraft or fired by shells, the messages they bore being less careful about the general principles of consistency and frankness and only truthful about matters on which the enemy had contradictory information”.[7] It was found that psychological warfare was not effective when distributing surrender leaflets to an enemy which currently had a high morale amongst its troops.[8] Despite the pitfalls to airborne leaflets ineffectiveness on opposing sides with high morale, enemies used this tactic “to cause the men to begin talking to each other about their poor military position, their desire to stay alive for their families’ sakes, and the reasonableness of honorable surrender”,[9] which often led men to desert their troops.
One example of German leaflets which appealed to American troops was one that depicted a passionate kiss between a man and woman. The leaflet read: “FAREWELL Remember her last kiss…? Gee were you happy then…! Together, you spent marvelous times…, lounging on beaches…, dancing, enjoying parties galore.., listening to the tunes of your favorite band…”.[10] The leaflets back side reminds the soldier that his loved one is longing for him and that most of the men he had come with are now dead. This leaflet was the attempt of the Germans to pull at the heart strings of the American men in Europe. Reminding them of their loved ones, and that if they continue fighting, they may die and leave loved ones behind.[10]
Comparatively, the allied troops were able to persuade the Axis forces by using no words at all in one of their airborne leaflets. This leaflet simply shows a picture of a large open field with thousands of graves of German soldiers. This leaflet, dropped over Germany in 1942, is the Allied forces direct way to tell the soldiers what their fate is by longing for an Iron Cross.[11]
Even though leaflet propaganda has been an effective “weapon”, its use has been on a decline. This decline is a result of the advance of satellite, television, and radio technology. Six billion leaflets were dropped in Western Europe alone during World War II. One billion were used during the Korean War while only thirty one million have been used in the war against Iraq. Other conflicts where leaflet propaganda has been used are Vietnam, Afghanistan (both during the Soviet and more recent NATO invasions), and the Gulf War. Leaflets encouraging Iraqi troops not to fight were dropped during the first Gulf War which contributed to eighty thousand Iraqi troops surrendering in 1991.
Leaflet delivery can be as simple as having one or more of the aircraft's crew throwing bundles of leaflets out of an open hatchway. A more sophistocated method is the leaflet bomb. This is not an explosive device, but rather a bomb–shaped container that is dropped from the aircraft and opens in mid-air, dispersing the leaflets it holds, one may contain tens of thousands of leaflets.
The first ideas to construct special bombs with which to disperse airborne leaflets was put forward by French and British air force officers during World War II but it was not implemented until 1943 by the American military in the form of the 'Monroe bomb' named after its inventor, USA Air Force Captain James Monroe of the 305th Bomber Group. It was developed from laminated paper containers that had been used to transport M-17 incendiary bombs.[12]
Leaflet bombs in the US inventory include the PDU-5B dispenser unit, the LBU30[13] and the older M129E1/E2. The M129 weighs 52 kilograms (115 lb) when empty and approximately 100 kilograms (220 lb) when loaded. It can contain 60,000 to 80,000 leaflets. At a pre–determined time after release, the two halves of the bomb's outer shell are blown apart by detonating cord, dispersing the leaflet payload.[14]
Soviet/Russian leaflet bombs include the AGITAB-250-85 and the AGITAB-500-300 (used during the First Chechen War).
During World War 2, the British used hydrogen balloons to carry leaflets over German lines.[15] Some of the V-1 flying bombs launched by the Germans against southern England carried leaflets - they were contained in a cardboard tube at the tail of missile. This would be ejected by a small gunpowder charge while the V1 was in mid-air, en-route to its target.[16]
Leaflet bombs have not only been used by states for purposes of military warfare but have since the 1940s also been used by radical political and ideological sub-state groups.
The use of leaflet bombs by non-state groups began in 1945 when the Irgun group developed a bomb that was "deposited in the street, ticked away until detonation, then scattered news sheet over a wide and smoky area". In September 1945 three of Irgun's leaflet bombs exploded in Jerusalem and injured nine people.[17]
In the late 1960s the African National Congress (ANC) started to use a version of the leaflet bomb in South Africa. This bomb was developed in collaboration with the South African Communist Party (SACP) and South Africans living in exile in London. The first time this leaflet bomb, known to South African activists as the 'bucket bomb' and to the South African police forces as the 'ideological bomb', was used was in 1967.[18] This was one of the most important propaganda weapons of the ANC as can be seen by the resources devoted to it and its frequent use during the 1960s and 1970s spreading tens of thousands of leaflets. ANC hailed it publicly as a central technology in their efforts as shown by this quote from ANC's journal Sechaba in 1970 looking back at the uses of leaflets as propaganda in the 1960s:
"It was in this new period that underground propaganda, demonstrating the effectiveness of the ANC machinery and projecting its voice, became of incalculable value. Underground leaflets began to appear in the townships, factories and city streets. Passed on from hand to hand, these reminded the people that the spirit of resistance must never die. These were often complemented by slogans painted on walls proclaiming: "Free Mandela," "Free Sisulu" and "Long Live the ANC." as modest as these propaganda efforts were [...] they showed that the ANC could survive the most severe measures of the regime."[19] [Emphasis added]
Furthermore, the South African press and security forces also saw it as a very important weapon of the ANC as can be evidenced by the threats from the police to take action against the South African press for publishing parts of ANC's leaflets. The South African Minister of Police even acknowledged publicly that the importance of ANC's leaflet bombs when he was quoted in a South African newspaper stating that "the explosions are an indication that subversive elements are still active" inside South Africa and warned the "public" that they "must not think the dangers are a thing of the past. It is something with which we will just have to live."[20] As this statement makes clear the South African police saw this as a weapon causing and indicating a terror among the public.
The leaflet bomb has been relatively popular in Latin America with several recorded uses by various groups advocating political violence.
In the 1980s the FMLN in El Salvador used this technology under the name of 'propaganda bomb'. It was one of the "favorite tactics" of its urban militia groups and preferable used in public places like markets or public parks.[21] The design of the bomb was adapted to the local environment in that it
"consisted of a cardboard box with a small, low-power explosive underneath a large number of propaganda leaflets. The explosive was set off by a homemade time igniter. The box was disguised to look like any ordinary package or box that might be carried by someone going or returning from a trip to the marketplace."[22]
The use of leaflet bombs played a part in the FMLN's recruitment process known to them as fogueo - which meant to experience fire or fire-harden something - which was the process by which the recruits "were toughened and the weak and fainthearted were weeded out". The fogueo process was
"a very carefully designed program of increasingly risky operations in support of the guerilla movement. As the candidates successfully completed each operation, it gave them confidence to carry out the next danger level of operation until they became full-fledged guerilla combatants."[23]
This process began with low-level information-gathering and propaganda activities in support of FMLN where the culminating activity before being ready for "combat military activity" could be the making and exploding of a leaflet bomb.[23]
In Honduras the Popular Movement for Liberation (MPL) and Morazanist Patriotic Front (FPM) have also used propaganda bombs during the 1990s.[24][25]
The Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unity URNG in Guatemala also used leaflet bombs. In 1996 the group occupied a radio station and set off a leaflet bomb.[26]
In Ecuador several groups have used leaflet bombs. The Revolutionary Armed Corps (CAR) was according to the Ecuadorian police "an extreme leftist group" which is only known for one attempted attack on February 20, 2001 when a leaflet bomb containing 150 pamphlets was discovered and successfully defused by the police.[27]
The communist Group of Popular Combatants (GCP) has on several occasions during 2001-2005 used leaflet bombs. In 2001 it was blamed by authorities for a pamphlet bomb and later the same year the group claimed responsibility for detonating a pamphlet bomb in downtown Quito that let out hundreds of pamphlets protesting against Plan Colombia.[28] In 2002 The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Ecuador set off a leaflet bomb in a McDonald’s restaurant in Guayaquil that injured three people and caused severe damage to the property.
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