Soviet Active Measures and U.S. Covert Action Essay

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Soviet Active Measures and U.S. Covert Action programs

The focus of this essay is to explore, compare and contrast the U.S. Covert Action programs with the Soviet Active Measures of the same time period. The United States uses the Covert Action program and Soviet Union uses Active Measure to influence the political, economic, and social conditions of foreign countries. While there are similarities in their operations, there are still some fundamental differences.

Explore, Compare and Contrast the U.S. Covert Action with the Soviet Active Measures

Covert action program is the activities of the United States Government used to influence economic, military and political conditions of foreign countries or government. The U.S. uses the covert action to achieve their desired foreign policy goals without necessarily acknowledging their intention publicly. Typically, U.S. uses broad spectrum of covert actions that include:

Propaganda: CIA covertly disseminates specific information to achieve foreign policy goals. However, the U.S. law prohibits the use of intelligence agencies to influence domestic opinion and media.

Paramilitary Operations: The U.S. also uses intelligence agencies to covertly equip and train personnel to conduct intelligence operations or attack on adversaries. The U.S. does not normally use the military personnel to carry out this operation. (Johnson & James 2008).

Lethal Action: During the period of armed conflict, the U.S. sometimes uses covert lethal force against foreign governments who pose a threat to the U.S. national interests.

Major feature of covert operations is that U.S. officials plausibly deny involvement in the activity. This plausible deny is understandable since a covert action is designed to remain a top secret. (Lowenthal, 2003).

Using a Covert Action program, the United States assisted in overthrowing foreign governments generally termed regime change without overtly using military force.

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Often, such operations are tasked by the CIA (Central Intelligence Agency). The United States has also been involved in regime changes through direct involvement of the U.S. operations using different covert technique such as funding the insurgency groups or anti-regime propaganda. More often, the U.S. sponsors coups d'etat to remove offending governments. Moreover, the United States has accomplished regime change using a direct military action. For example, the U.S. engaged in the military-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 and invasion of Panama in 1989. Sometimes, the United States covertly overthrow civilian governments perceived to be pro-communists. The United States also covertly supported opposition groups in various counties without overthrowing the government. For example, CIA sponsored the anti-communists political parties in countries such as Chile and Italy. Moreover, the U.S. supplied arms to the Kurdish rebels against the Iraqi government in the Second Kurdish-Iraqi War. (Daugherty, 2004).

Similar to the U.S. covert action programs, the Soviet also uses the Active Measures to influence the course of world event. The Active Measures of the Soviet is a form of political warfare used to influence the world event. The Active Measures employ media manipulation using various degree of violence. Fundamental difference between the U.S. covert action and the Soviet Active Measures is that the U.S. only uses its Covert Action against foreign governments or foreign enemies to achieve its foreign policy goals. The U.S. does not use its Covert Action domestically or use it to influence domestic media. Contrarily, Soviet used the Active Measures to manipulate domestic medias to achieve special actions. Typically, the Soviet….....

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