Covert operations are military or political activities that are not only clandestine (undertaken in a manner that disguises the identity of the perpetrators) but also covert, i.e. denied by the governments that undertake them. They are employed in situations where openly operating against a target would jeopardize the operation's success. In the case of enemies, there may be issues regarding military strength, treaties, laws, moral principles, or aversion to negative media attention. Operations may be directed at allies and friends to secure their support or to influence their policy against an enemy. Covert operations differ from espionage by attempting to influence events in another country rather than gathering information about it.

The best-known organizations specializing in covert operations today are the Central Intelligence Agency and the Department of Defense (The Pentagon) of the United States, but covert operations have been employed by many national and sub-national governments and other organizations for centuries, with or without a formal intelligence agency. They are an established and often controversial component of foreign policy throughout the world.

Law enforcement agencies also use covert operations to infiltrate suspected criminal organizations.

Forms of covert operations

Covert action takes many different forms reflecting the diverse circumstances in which it is used. There are paramilitary operations, in which a state trains, supports, or advises a military force in another country. There is political subversion, in which a state supports or advises a political group in another country or directs propaganda at its population. In disinformation operations, a government provides forged documents to another government to turn that government against an enemy. Some of the most controversional covert actions are those directed against individuals, such as kidnappings, assassinations, and coups d'état.

A common tactic in covert operations is to establish a front business or organization through which agents can operate unrecognized. Air America, the CIA-owned airline that supplied Hmong fighters in Laos during the Second Indochina War, is an example of such a front organization.

Examples of covert operations

• Smallpox-infested blankets being distributed to Native North Americans in an early form of germ warfare. See Jeffrey Amherst and Smallpox Blankets.
• A campaign against North Vietnam conducted by the Pentagon's Special Operations Group under the cover name "Studies and Observation Group" from 1964 to 1972, said to be the largest and most complex covert operation since World War II and involving the dispatch of spies, psychological warfare, manipulation of North Vietnamese POWs and kidnapped citizens, dirty tricks, commando raids, and operations on the Ho Chi Minh trail. [1]
• The assassination (by Mossad) of the Palestinians who organized the murder of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympics in Munich, Germany.
• The Iran-Contra affair; and Operation COINTELPRO, the FBI's program to subvert and disrupt domestic left-leaning political groups during the Cold War.

Representations of covert operations in popular culture

Covert operations have often been the subject of popular novels, films, TV series, etc.

Literature

See Spy fiction.

Film

See Spy film.

Television

• I Spy
• Mission: Impossible, 1966-1963, 1988-1990

References

1. Shultz, Richard H., Jr. The Secret War against Hanoi: Kennedy's and Johnson's Use of Spies, Saboteurs, and Covert Warriors in North Vietnam. HarperCollins, 1999. ISBN 0060194545.

See also

• black op