War of ideas

In the political field, a war of ideas is a confrontation among the ideologies that nations and political groups use to promote their domestic and foreign interests. In a war of ideas, the battle space is the public mind: the belief of the people who compose the population. This ideological conflict is about winning the hearts and minds of the people. Waging a war of ideas can involve think tanks, television programs, journalistic articles (newspaper, magazine, weblogs), government policies, and public diplomacy. In the monograph: 'Wars of Ideas and The War of Ideas' (2008), Antulio J. Echevarria defined the war of ideas as:

A clash of visions, concepts, and images, and — especially — the interpretation of them. They are, indeed, genuine wars, even though the physical violence might be minimal, because they serve a political, socio-cultural, or economic purpose, and they involve hostile intentions or hostile acts. ... Four general categories [include] ... (i) intellectual debates, (ii) ideological wars, (iii) wars over religious dogma, and (iv) advertising campaigns. All of [the categories] are essentially about power and influence, just as with wars over territory and material resources, and their stakes can run very high indeed.

On résiste à l'invasion des armées; on ne résiste pas à l'invasion des idées.
One resists the invasion of armies; one does not resist the invasion of ideas.

— Victor-Marie Hugo (1802–1885), Histoire d'un Crime (The History of a Crime), Conclusion, ch. X. Trans. T.H. Joyce and Arthur Locker; written 1852, published 1877

The ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed, the world is ruled by little else. Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influences, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist. Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the air, are distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler of a few years back.

— John Maynard Keynes, The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money (1936), chapter xxiv

Richard M. Weaver published Ideas Have Consequences in 1948 by the University of Chicago Press. The book is largely a treatise on the harmful effects of nominalism on Western civilization since that doctrine gained prominence in the High Middle Ages, followed by a prescription of a course of action through which Weaver believes the West might be rescued from its decline. Weaver attributes the beginning of the Western decline to the adoption of nominalism (or the rejection of the notion of absolute truth) in the late Scholastic period.

In 1993, Heritage Foundation analyst James A. Phillips used the term "war of ideas" in describing the pivotal role played by the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) in the ideological battle for the protection of democracy. Phillips defended the NED as "an important weapon in the war of ideas," against communist dictatorships in control of China, Cuba, North Korea, and Vietnam. In a Cato Institute foreign policy brief, it was argued that there was no longer a need for the NED because "the democratic West has won the war of ideas against its communist adversaries." Gingrich declared,