how important is propaganda when a country is fighting war?

Answer 1

It depends upon which definition you are using. The correct definition of 'Propaganda' is; "the telling or distribution of the truth".
The term has been so misused over the years that it has assumed an opposing meaning.

In time of war every country censors its media and distributes material that is 'morale building" to the people at home and demoralising to the enemy. A lot of this is inaccurate material or pure lies.

A typical example of this by the US government during the Vietnam War was that... "the North Vietnamese invaded the South..." In fact, the US violated every aspect of the 1954 Geneva Agreements and sent CIA agents into the Northern half of Vietnam to destroy major infrastructure-- Coal mines, Coal depots, Oil depots, Railway lines, Dams and Dikes etc. They did this in 1954 along with spreading false rumours to the Catholics in the north that they would be persecuted if they remained in the North, therefore the mass exodus to the south in 1954.

Answer 2

Information is knowledge. What governments/media choose to inform, or misinform with an intended objective then information becomes propaganda - it is an essential tool of governments at war and during peacetime.

Before the advent of computerization, information was mainly dispensed by the media. In a war, they are the "eyes" through which the public at home see the progress of the war. Actress Jane Fonda's visit to North Vietnam during the Vietnam War was used by the Vietcong as propaganda and it influenced a segment of the American public.

Today, even Nancy Pelosi's private visit to Syria do not raise an eyebrow; there is no propaganda value that Syrians could extract. We are inundated with information. Numb.

But the most powerful propaganda in the history of mankind was singularly achieved by a man with no country to call his own, no media of his own: Osama bin Laden. The fallout of 9/11 is unprecedented in history.

Answer 3

depends on one's perspectave...in WWII the US censored news about the war for the first year and the population caused a stir and roosevelt reinstated freedom of the press to reporters and US morale climbed. It wasn't the bad news that the population hated, it was government censorship...government propaganda is mostly about keeping the general population from learning what's REALLY going on--and it's easier for the bush (oops) government to control the population's knowledge by putting out (oftentimes) erroneous propaganda.

Answer 4

Pretty important, war is just as much psychological as it is physical. If you can demoralize your enemy then that is way better than having to engage him on the field.

What was funny was that in early 1945 Germany was still dropping propaganda leaflets telling the Americans, Soviets and Brits to lay down their arms and surrender OR ELSE!