The House of Han has fallen upon evil days, the bonds of Imperial authority are loosened. The rebel minister, Tung Cho, takes advantage of the discord to work evil, and calamity falls upon honorable families. Cruelty overwhelms simple folk. We, Shao and his confederates, fearing for the safety of the imperial prerogatives, have assembled military forces to rescue the State. We now pledge ourselves to exert our whole strength, and to act in concord to the utmost limit of our powers. There must be no disconcerted or selfish action. Should any depart from this pledge may he lose his life and leave no posterity. Almighty Heaven and Universal Mother Earth and the enlightened spirits of our forefathers, be ye our witnesses.[5]
Any history of any country will yield further examples of this kind of material. Whenever it was consciously used as an adjunct to military operations, it may appropriately be termed military propaganda.
[Illustration: _Figure 5: Revolutionary Propaganda._ When revolution favors one side or the other in war, revolutionary propaganda becomes an instrument which is used by one constituted government against another. This leaflet was issued by the Azad Hind Fauj (Free India Army) of the Japanese puppet Subhas Chandra Bose. (Singapore, then called Shonan, 1943 and 1944.) The leaflet avoids direct reference to the Japanese, and is therefore "block" propaganda. Its theme is simple: the British are alleged to eat while the Hindus starve. At the time, this argument had some plausibility. There was famine in Bengal, but no white men were found among the thousands of emaciated dead.]
=Emphasis on Ideology.= In a sense, the experience of the past may, unfortunately, provide a clue to the future. The last two great wars have shown an increasing emphasis on ideology or political faith (see definition, page 30 below) as driving forces behind warfare, rather than the considerations of coldly calculated diplomacy. Wars become more serious, and less gentlemanly; the enemy must be taken into account not merely as a man, but as a fanatic. To the normal group-loyalty of any good soldier to his army, right or wrong, there is added the loyalty to the Ism or the Leader. Warfare thus goes back to the Wars of Faith. It is possible that techniques from the Christian-Mohammedan or from the Protestant-Catholic wars of the past could be reëxamined with a view to establishing those parts of their tested experience which may seem to be psychologically and militarily sound in our own time. How fast can converts be made from the other side? In what circumstances should an enemy word of honor be treated as valid? How can heretics (today, read "subversive elements") be uprooted? Does the enemy faith have weak points which permit enemy beliefs to be turned against personnel at the appropriate times? What unobjectionable forms should leaflets and broadcasts follow in mentioning subjects which are reverenced by the enemy but not by ourselves?