Covert interference in the affairs of another country can be hidden so that the perpetrator can deny responsibility and avoid reprisals.
It is less risky than overt military action. It may be hard to prove to the UN what is happening, so international law is an ineffective remedy. The affected countries are obliged to take their own countermeasures for self-protection.
Russia has actively attempted to weaken the West by secretly influencing its politics. For example, a UK report on Russian interference described how there was evidence that it had meddled in British democracy, in the Scottish independence referendum and the Brexit referendum, and had carried out assassinations by poisoning.
That report also mentioned a high-profile American investigation into external influences on the 2016 US presidential election, which had uncovered a lot of evidence that Russian tampering had taken place.
As described in the following sub-sections, covert interference can take the following forms:
· Intelligence-gathering – spying – might be to gain military or technical information (7.3.4.1). It can be used to expose an enemy's weaknesses, to discover impending threats, or to gain competitive advantage.
· Several governments have engaged in the assassination of key individuals (7.3.4.2). Iraq, Israel and Russia have all been accused of it. The affected governments sometimes respond violently.
· Cyber-attacks have now been added to the practice of sabotage against key infrastructure (7.3.4.3). These are becoming more widespread, and more powerful with developments in technology. Defence against them is expensive.
· Governments can project power by helping resistance groups with funding, whilst denying doing so (7.3.4.4). Russia's Wagner group, the CIA coup in Iran, and Iran's activities in the Middle East are all examples of this.
· Subversion of a foreign government, using fake news and propaganda, has become easier with Internet social media (7.3.4.5). And Russian interference in American politics is becoming more sophisticated, using artificial intelligence.
(This is an archive of a page intended to form part of Edition 4 of the Patterns of Power series of books. The latest versions are at book contents).