Psychology
Napoleon is well known for his comment "The moral is to the physical as three to one." Former Secretary of State and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Colin Powell has said: "Perpetual optimism is a force multiplier." Morale, training, and ethos have long been known to result in disproportionate effects on the battlefield.
Psychological warfare can target the morale, politics, and values of enemy soldiers and their supporters to effectively neutralize them in a conflict.
Read more about this topic: Force Multiplication
Famous quotes containing the word psychology:
“Idleness is the beginning of all psychology. What? Could it be that psychology is—a vice?”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“Whatever else American thinkers do, they psychologize, often brilliantly. The trouble is that psychology only takes us so far. The new interest in families has its merits, but it will have done us all a disservice if it turns us away from public issues to private matters. A vision of things that has no room for the inner life is bankrupt, but a psychology without social analysis or politics is both powerless and very lonely.”
—Joseph Featherstone (20th century)
“Views of women, on one side, as inwardly directed toward home and family and notions of men, on the other, as outwardly striving toward fame and fortune have resounded throughout literature and in the texts of history, biology, and psychology until they seem uncontestable. Such dichotomous views defy the complexities of individuals and stifle the potential for people to reveal different dimensions of themselves in various settings.”
—Sara Lawrence Lightfoot (20th century)