The relation of ideology to war and conflict was an obsessive theme of the Cold War. The theorists tried to make ideology an operational weapon in the 1950s, through the medium of psychological warfare, and later through counterinsurgency. A 1952 summary of the objective of psychological warfare centered on measures to negate the enemy's ideology (or doctrine) and to inculcate one's own:
First, to demoralize the enemy, i.e., to destroy his faith in his own side; second, to exdoctrinate him, if I may coin a word—to eradicate the doctrines in which he has been taught to believe by his own side; and third, if possible to indoctrinate him with positive doctrines which we wish him to possess.1
The ideological dimension of the Cold War was a principal concern of the National Security Council's Psychological Strategy Board (PSB) under the Truman administration. The PSB, set up in April 1951 to be a "sort of a general staff to plan and supervise the cold war,"2 was responsible for a program of what it called "Doctrinal (Ideological) Warfare." However, the board's official definition of ideology demonstrated a characteristically American uncertainty about the very concept:
Ideology: A system of ideas, whether consciously organized or not which explains various aspects of life, justifies the social structure, and provides a ready-made meaning for human existence.
Doctrinal (Ideological) Warfare: A planned attack against the basic hostile system conducted concurrently with a positive advocacy of basic Ideas of our own system.3
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