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> So what does this author consider “psyops”, exactly?

Linebarger was employed by the US Army during WWII with a Psychological Warfare MOS and wrote a textbook (with the obvious name, available in the obvious places) on the subject; after that, having been among the group that "lost China", he updated his textbook with lessons learned.

(but yes, subverting the culture* which the other guys' ruling class maintains to keep their subjects fighting on their behalf is an obvious part of the job; Linebarger gives biblical examples demonstrating this line of work, and the Cyrus Cylinder fits in his model. He was himself part of the class depicted in https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XPPpjU1UeAo and, at least by the 1954 version of his book, was aware how this may have damaged his side's credibility in the eyes of the modal chinese peasant)

* culture explains the stasis hypothesised in 1984: because all three geopowers have superficially-different but structurally-identical socioeconomics, they have a shared interest in not attempting to subvert each other deeply, only competing superficially.