Another set of distinctions can be set up, depending on the relationship of the propaganda operation to the simultaneous hostile propaganda operations, namely offensive or defensive propaganda. Before the advent of World War II, this distinction appeared to be significant but experience on almost all fronts indicated that it meant little when applied to day-in day-out necessities of actual practice. Propaganda is so intimately keyed to the news and opinion situation that it does not usually bear elaborate pre-operational analysis. Elaborate planning very often ends up in the locked files; the distinction of offensive and defensive means little in routine work. However, for the sake of the record, the distinction can be listed:

Another set of distinctions arises from the purpose which the propaganda officer or group may have in mind for the people whom he addresses. These distinctions, like offensive-defensive, are theoretical rather than practical, and did not often appear in the actual operations, although all the more hush-hush plans made elaborate references to them:

Except for those terms that are firmly rooted in the literature of propaganda, most of the distinctions can be forgotten; the basic distinctions are those determined by the task involved, and not by the propaganda content.

World War II brought up a very sore issue between military and civilians with respect to propaganda in areas with unsettled governments—such as Darlanist North Africa, Communist China, all of Siam. (See, also, discussion of World War II, below, page [77] ff.) In these areas every military act involved the definition of the political relations of the United States Government to the governments locally enjoying authority. Were we at war with them, or not? And so on. In these cases, politics itself became a vital foundation to propaganda, especially when the local authorities were themselves active in the propaganda field. The American theater and unit commanders had to decide what kinds of political promises they could or could not make. In this job, they had a more difficult task than did the British, who possessed in the Political Warfare Executive a pooling facility which coordinated foreign policy with propaganda.[19] Could we promise freedom from France to the Algerians? Or immunity to the Siamese who re-doublecrossed in the matter of allegiance and got ready to subvert the Japanese? Or the Yenan people who wanted us to highjack the Generalissimo as a price of their support? Or the Indonesians who might oppose the Japanese and already opposed the Dutch? Such questions transcended propaganda. Their decision made propaganda, or unmade it; but the deciding power was outside the authority of the propaganda people.

Political warfare is therefore, in administrative terms, a higher-level activity than propaganda, and may be defined as follows:

Political warfare consists of the framing of national policy in such a way as to assist propaganda or military operations, whether with respect to the direct political relations of governments with one another or in relation to groups of people possessing a political character.

Such policy-framing does not normally fall within the authority of the Army or Navy, though these may be consulted and called upon to effect appropriate military action. An outstanding instance of the use of political warfare was President Roosevelt's impromptu enunciation of the theme "Unconditional Surrender" at Casablanca. The theme affected not only our propaganda, but the types of surrenders which American generals could accept from Germans.