Psychiatry and Applied Anthropology in Psychological Warfare against Japan

During the war, the policy makers of our government were faced with a number of interesting and important questions that hinged on the nature of the Japanese as members of a society that carries a particular culture and as human beings with individual needs and motives.

One set of such questions concerned the high morale of the Japanese fighting forces. It seemed to many officials and to the general public that this morale was a solid and impregnable wall of uniform strength with every enemy soldier an ideal fighting machine—fearless, fanatic, obeying instantly without question and looking only for an opportunity to die for the Emperor. If this were so, then it would be necessary to prepare for a long war that would be extremely costly in American lives and resources. Every isolated Japanese garrison would have to be exterminated, no matter how hopeless its situation; and there would be the painful process of taking Japan foot by foot and of endless mopping up behind the lines wherever Japanese were left alive.

This may seem an exaggerated picture now, but during the first three years of the war it was seriously entertained as a grave and threatening possibility.

Policy makers in our government needed to know whether the morale of all the Japanese was uniformly high or whether it had weak spots that could deteriorate and spread their degenerative influence. Was the morale structure really entirely solid, or was the Japanese soldier, in spite of his remarkable performance, caught in the ambivalence characteristic of other soldiers: the conflict between the will to resist and the will to exist?

Further, if there were weaknesses in morale, it would be vital to know what kinds of circumstances would cause their spread. Could we apply psychological warfare with any expectation of reducing the enemy's fighting efficiency? Might we even hope that by adding this element to military pressure significant numbers of Japanese troops could be induced to surrender?

And then there was