Propaganda as a Weapon of War and Politics

By Okoi Obono-Obla 

Propaganda as a Weapon of War and Politics:

Propaganda is a tool of warfare, which Joseph Goebbels, the Minister of Propaganda in the Third Reich of Nazi Germany during the Second World War, deployed and employed both directly and dexterously to maximum effect. The Prussian soldier and military theorist Carl von Clausewitz once said that politics is a species of war by another name. Therefore, in war, armies use propaganda as a weapon just as in politics.

You joined a new party on 3 May, and by 7 May your followers began spreading the claim that ten million people had digitally registered to join your new party—without even showing that they had properly resigned their membership from their previous party or regularized their membership in the new one.

Politics is war in the sense that the strategies and tactics armies use to win battles on the warfront are akin to the strategies and tactics politicians devise in the dead of night to outmaneuver their opponents in an election. Armies require resource mobilization when they are on the march, just as politicians require resource mobilization in the form of money, advertisements, printing of campaign materials, and other instruments of persuasion. Successful militaries always maintain great discipline when attacking their enemy: they send reconnaissance squads, infiltrate, and seek to destabilize the opponent. Politics functions in the same way, and the opposition must remain vigilant, never exposing its flanks for exploitation. Opposition is not about blaming the government or others for one’s own inadequacies and then passing the buck; it is about being prepared, disciplined, and strategic.

Propaganda is psychology: it instills fear, but it is always hollow and make‑believe. In the end, while propaganda may create illusions of strength and momentum, its fragility is exposed when reality demands substance over spectacle. True victory—whether in war or politics—rests not on deception alone, but on the solid foundation of discipline, resources, organization, and genuine support.