Covert operation

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Covert operations (Engl. Covert operation ) are political , intelligence and military activities, both secretly and run (to conceal the identity of the author) hidden, that is, their existence becomes active by the author as needed denied (= deny). They are used in situations in which an open approach would not lead to the desired goal or would jeopardize the success of the measure. Typical actors in such operations are secret services , which often have their own specialized departments, and special military units .

It is in the nature of things that the public only learns of such activities in exceptional cases or with a long delay, which is why they hardly play a role in media reporting, despite their sometimes considerable political significance and consequences. In many countries they form an established and regular means of unofficial foreign policy . In the meantime, a large number of operations from the second half of the 20th century have become known, which were mainly carried out by the two superpowers USA and Soviet Union and their respective allies in the course of their conflict in the Cold War .

General

A covert operation is usually directed against a state or a region, but can also affect targets in one's own country, for example in a political crisis area . Reasons for choosing a covert operation are, for example, if the objectives or methods of the operation violate existing laws, parliamentary bans or international law, or if negative reporting in one's own mass media or those of the target country is to be avoided. Covert operations are a classic field of activity for secret services . In operations with a military character, special forces such as the German Special Forces Command (KSK), the US Delta Force , the British Special Air Service (SAS) or the Russian Speznas are often deployed.

Difference to espionage

The main difference to classic intelligence service espionage is that the focus is not on gaining information about the target country, but on actively manipulating it . Covert operations are an instrument for enforcing the interests of a state or, in practice, mostly by its government, whose potential is immense due to the abundance of power of the actors, great financial possibilities and the factual extensive independence from laws and democratic control. Conversely, this is expressed in often dramatic consequences for the target countries or regions concerned and their populations (see, for example, the contra-war against Nicaragua , Operation Condor ).

Difference between "clandestine operation" and "covert action"

In the English-speaking world, a distinction is also made between the terms covert action / operation and clandestine operation . Cover action refers to an action in which the secrecy relates in particular to the author of the action, i.e. the existence of the operation itself may be recognizable (for professional observers). At the same time, however, the author must be able to credibly deny a connection to himself . With the term clandestine operation , on the other hand, the emphasis is more on the complete secrecy of the action as such, i.e. the activities themselves must not be recognizable as a secret operation.

Characteristic

A typical covert operation is the financial or logistical support of a political movement or group in the target country in order to achieve one's own goals. This ranges from legal influence (e.g. support for democratic opposition groups) to defaming politically unpopular people or groups through disinformation and " operational information " to supporting paramilitary or guerrilla troops and terrorists .

There are numerous known cases in which political movements and parties, companies, trade unions, radio stations or publishers were founded, financed or significantly controlled by foreign secret services in order to exert influence on the target country in this way. The CIA in particular was very active in this area during the Cold War (see, for example, US Intervention in Chile , Congress for Cultural Freedom , The Month , Radio Free Europe ).

Another case is the (legal) support of the military in a less developed target country, for example through training programs and extensive military cooperation , in order to later have a politically undesirable government removed by allied officers through a military coup .

Typical covert operations with a predominantly military character are the liberation of hostages in hostile countries, the fight against guerrilla troops or the organized drug trade .

Covert operations are also carried out under false flags against allied or friendly states or on their own national territory, for example to secure their support or the action against a common enemy or to create or stir up certain desired moods in the civilian population.

Basic elements / typology of covert operations

Black operations

Covert operations that involve serious violations of laws or ethical principles are generally carried out under extreme secrecy , i.e. under a very strict need-to-know principle . The English technical term for such operations is Black Operation or Black Op , which is translated as Black Operation in German . Methods of a black operation can include, for example, murder (especially political murder ), kidnapping, torture, the disappearance of people, the staging of terrorist attacks in one's own country, the illegal systematic spying on citizens of one's own state or the illegal support of armed resistance or terror groups in other countries.

Some states such as South Africa , Argentina or El Salvador have waged so-called dirty wars against parts of their own civilian populations, which had many characteristics of black operations. Black operations initiated by Western governments have also come to light, such as the activities of the Spanish Grupos Antiterroristas de Liberación in the 1980s or certain practices of the British security forces during the Northern Ireland conflict . One of the best known black operations planned, but ultimately not carried out because of the resistance of President John F. Kennedy , was Operation Northwoods of the US military in 1962. It included, among other things, the staging of terrorist attacks in the United States to justify an invasion of Cuba .

A special case of black operations are so-called false flag operations ( Engl. , German: false flag ) to damage, the result of which is attributed to allegedly intentionally and an actually unrelated third party, for example to its reputation. Usually targeted disinformation is used. Operation Northwoods, mentioned above, was designed as a false flag operation to falsely hold Cubans responsible for terrorist attacks in the United States that were staged by US authorities.

Legal aspects and consequences

In peacetime, covert operations are one of the few means of bypassing the sovereignty of a foreign state to directly influence its internal affairs . The methods used often violate both the national law of the executing and the target country as well as international law , which makes the need for confidentiality appear all the more urgent. If a covert operation is exposed, this sometimes leads to serious diplomatic crises between the states concerned.

public perception

Covert operations are an established and regularly used, albeit very controversial, instrument of the foreign policy of numerous states. It is in the nature of things that they are clearly underrepresented compared to their importance in media reporting and thus in public perception. The US government developed to conceal the operations of their secret services, the concept of credible deniability (Engl. Plausible deniablity ), see also misinformation .

Uncovered operations by an allied state are often kept secret or played down as much as possible by the government of the affected state from its own people so as not to further burden the already tense relations with an uproar in public opinion .

Well-known actors

Numerous secret services have departments whose official task is to carry out covert operations.

The CIA and the United States Department of Defense are two of the most well-known organizations that systematically and officially conduct covert operations, see also the CIA operations that have become known and the list of United States military operations . The Soviet KGB and the Ministry for State Security of the GDR also carried out numerous covert operations, the corresponding term was " active measures ". Other well-known actors are the British MI6 , the French DGSE and the Israeli Mossad (without claiming to be exhaustive).

Undercover operations on the territory of the Federal Republic of Germany are prohibited by law to the German Federal Intelligence Service . However, there are a few known cases in which the BND has violated this ban.

Examples

BND

CIA

DGSE

GDR State Security

Other intelligence services

  • Operation Condor was a multinational covert operation by right-wing military dictatorships in Argentina , Chile , Paraguay , Uruguay , Bolivia, and Brazil in the 1970s and 1980s. The aim was the joint persecution and murder of opposition members. The CIA is accused of having tolerated the operation despite its knowledge and even indirectly supported it.
  • Operation STOCKADE was an operation by the Security Service (MI5) and the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) to record and decrypt the secret communications of the French Embassy in London in the 1960s.
  • In the 1990s, the Iranian VEVAK systematically murdered around 100 Iranian opponents of the regime, including journalists, artists and authors. The acts of violence, known as chain murders , were disguised as car accidents, knife fights or natural deaths, among other things, and were presumably ordered directly by the state leadership.
  • During apartheid, the South African police maintained the secret special unit C1 (formerly: C10), which was also known as the " Vlakplaas ". C1 carried out numerous attacks against opponents of the apartheid regime as covert operations, the victims mostly belonged to the black population group.

literature

  • Christopher Andrew , Vasily Mitrochin : The Mitrokhin Archive. The KGB in Europe and the West. The Mitrokhin Archive . Penguin Books, London 2000, ISBN 0-14-028487-7 .
  • William Fowler: SAS Behind Enemy Lines. Covert Operations 1941-1991 . New Edition. Harper Collins, London 2005, ISBN 0-00-719990-2 .
  • John Prados : Presidents' Secret Wars. CIA and Pentagon Covert Operations from World War II Through the Persian Gulf . Newly revised and updated Edition. Ivan R. Dee, Chicago 1996, ISBN 1-56663-108-4 (Elephant paperbacks 134).
  • Christof Mauch , Jeremiah Riemer: The Shadow War Against Hitler. The Covert Operations of America's Wartime Secret Intelligence Service . Columbia University Press, New York 2005, ISBN 0-231-12045-1 .
  • J. Patrice McSherry: Predatory States. Operation Condor and Covert War in Latin America . Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Lanham, MD 2005, ISBN 0-7425-3687-4 .
  • Peter Stiff: The Covert War. Koevoet Operations. Namibia 1979–1989 . Galago Publishing Pty Ltd, Alberton 2000, ISBN 1-919854-03-7 .
  • Steven Emerson : Secret Warriors. Inside the Covert Military Operations of the Reagan Era , New York (Putnam) 1988. ISBN 0-399-13360-7 .

Individual evidence

  1. a b c David Isenberg: The Pitfalls of US Covert Operations. Cato Policy Analysis No. 118, April 7, 1989. Quotation on the type and scope of covert operations of the CIA: (...) both the scope and the scale of such operations have been enormous. Paramilitary operations - which can be more accurately described as secret wars, the most extreme form of covert action - have resulted in countless deaths and immense destruction. Covert operations have become the instrument of choice for policymakers who assume that a cold war status quo is inevitable.
  2. RCS Trahair: Encyclopedia of Cold War espionage, spies, and secret operations , Greenwood Publishing Group, 2004, ISBN 978-0-313-31955-6 (English, p. 391)
  3. ^ Sir John Stevens QPM, DL: Stevens Inquiry 3. Overview & Recommendations. Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police Service, April 17, 2003, accessed July 17, 2019 .
  4. Britain's dirty was; Northern Ireland. (Security forces and murder in Northern Ireland). In: The Economist . April 26, 2003, archived from the original ; Retrieved January 9, 2009 .
  5. Charles M. Sennott: Reconciling a dark past. British government accused in lawyer's slaying. In: The Boston Globe . July 7, 2003, accessed January 9, 2009 .