Editing Blowback (intelligence)

{{Short description|Unintended consequence of covert operations, typically involving rogue terrorist groups}}
{{update|date=April 2013}}
{{Intelligence}}

'''Blowback''' is the [[unintended consequences]] and unwanted side-effects of a [[covert operation]]. 
To the civilians suffering the blowback of covert operations, the effect typically manifests itself as "random" acts of [[political violence]] without a discernible, direct cause; because the public&mdash;in whose name the [[intelligence agency]] acted&mdash;are unaware of the effected secret attacks that ''provoked revenge'' (counter-attack) against them.<ref>[http://www.thenation.com/article/blowback Blowback<!-- Bot generated title -->] ''[[The Nation]]''</ref>

==Etymology==
Originally, ''blowback'' was [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]] internal coinage denoting the unintended, harmful consequences&mdash;to friendly populations and military forces&mdash;when a given weapon is used beyond its purpose as intended by the party supplying it. Examples include anti-Western religious figures (e.g. [[Osama bin Laden]]) who, in due course, attack foe and sponsor; right-wing counter-revolutionaries who sell drugs to their sponsor's civil populace (see [[CIA and Contras cocaine trafficking in the US]]); and [[banana republic]] [[wikt:junta|junta]]s (see [[Salvadoran Civil War]]) who kill American [[reporter]]s or [[nun]]s (e.g. [[Dorothy Kazel]]).<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1998/04/03/world/4-salvadorans-say-they-killed-us-nuns-on-orders-of-military.html?pagewanted=2|title=4 Salvadorans Say They Killed U.S. Nuns on Orders of Military|author=Larry Rother|work=New York Times|page=2|date=April 3, 1998|access-date=May 15, 2017}}</ref>

In formal print usage, the term ''blowback'' first appeared in the ''Clandestine Service History&mdash;Overthrow of [[Mohammed Mosaddeq|Premier Mossadeq]] of [[Iran]]&mdash;November 1952–August 1953'', the CIA's internal history of the [[1953 Iranian coup d'état]], sponsored by the American and British governments, which was published in March 1954.<ref>{{cite news| url=https://www.nytimes.com/2000/06/18/weekinreview/word-for-word-abc-s-coups-oh-what-fine-plot-we-hatched-here-s-what-next-time.html | work=[[The New York Times]] | title=WORD FOR WORD/ABC'S OF COUPS; Oh, What a Fine Plot We Hatched. (And Here's What to Do the Next Time) | first=James | last=Risen | date=18 June 2000}}</ref><ref>[http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/routledg/cnps/2002/00000024/00000001/art00003 IngentaConnect American Militarism and Blowback: The Costs of Letting the Pentagon Dominate Foreign Policy]</ref> Blowback from this operation would indeed occur with the [[Iranian Revolution]] and the [[Iran hostage crisis]]. Recent accounts of how blowback functioned in the [[War on Terror]] relation to US and UK intelligence and [[National security|defense]] [[propaganda]] and became an important issue in a 21st Century [[mass media|media]] [[Social environment|environment]] are discussed by [[Emma Briant]] in her book ''Propaganda and Counter-terrorism'' which presents first-hand accounts and discussions of deliberate and unintended consequences of blowback, oversight, and impacts for the public.<ref name="new">{{cite book|title=Propaganda and Counter-terrorism: Strategies for Global Change|publisher=Manchester University Press|first=Emma|last=Briant|date=2015|isbn=978-0-7190-9105-6}}</ref><ref name="hij.sagepub.com">{{cite journal|last1=Briant|title=Allies and Audiences Evolving Strategies in Defense and Intelligence Propaganda|journal=The International Journal of Press/Politics|date=April 2015|volume=20|issue=2|pages=145–165|doi=10.1177/1940161214552031|s2cid=145697213 }}</ref>

==Examples==

===Nicaragua and Iran-Contra===
In the 1980s, the blowback was a central theme in the legal and political debates about the efficacy of the [[Reagan Doctrine]], which advocated public ''and'' secret support of anti-Communist counter-revolutionaries.  For example, by secretly funding the secret war of the militarily-defeated, right-wing [[Contras]] against the left-wing [[Sandinista]] government of [[Nicaragua]], which led to the [[Iran–Contra Affair]], wherein the Reagan Administration sold American weapons to Iran (a state unfriendly to the US) to arm the Contras with Warsaw Pact weapons, and their consequent drug-dealing in American cities.<ref>Evans-Pritchard, Ambrose (1994) "Smugglers linked to [[Iran-Contra Affair|Contra]] arms deals," [[The Daily Telegraph|The Telegraph plc.]]</ref> Moreover, in the case of [[Nicaragua v. United States]], the [[International Court of Justice]] ruled against the United States secret military attacks against Sandinista Nicaragua, because the countries were not formally at war.

Reagan Doctrine advocates, including [[The Heritage Foundation]], argued that support for anti-Communists would topple Communist [[regime|régimes]] without retaliatory consequences to the United States and help win the global [[Cold War]].{{Citation needed|date=January 2022}}

===Afghanistan and Al Qaeda===
Examples of blowback include the CIA's [[Operation Cyclone|financing and support]] for Afghan insurgents to fight an anti-Communist proxy guerilla war against the [[USSR]] in [[Democratic Republic of Afghanistan|Afghanistan]]; some of the beneficiaries of this CIA support may have joined [[al-Qaeda]]'s terrorist campaign against the United States.<ref>[http://www.historycommons.org/context.jsp?item=a86operationcyclone Context of '1986-1992: CIA and British Recruit and Train Militants Worldwide to Help Fight Afghan War'] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080912195929/http://www.historycommons.org/context.jsp?item=a86operationcyclone |date=2008-09-12 }}, ''History Commons''.</ref>

===Syria and ISIS===
During the [[Syrian Civil War]], the United States and [[Saudi Arabia]] supported and aided anti-[[Bashar al-Assad|Assad]] armed groups.<ref>[https://edition.cnn.com/2013/09/12/politics/syria-arming-rebels/ Official says CIA-funded weapons have begun to reach Syrian rebels; rebels deny receipt], ''CNN''.</ref><ref>[https://www.reuters.com/article/us-syria-crisis-saudi-insight-idUSBRE94U0ZV20130531 Saudi edges Qatar to control Syrian rebel support] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151001104032/http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/05/31/us-syria-crisis-saudi-insight-idUSBRE94U0ZV20130531 |date=2015-10-01 }}, ''Reuters''.</ref> Some of those groups later shifted loyalty to [[ISIS]].<ref>[https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/06/isis-saudi-arabia-iraq-syria-bandar/373181/ 'Thank God for the Saudis': ISIS, Iraq, and the Lessons of Blowback], ''[[The Atlantic]]''.</ref>

===Abkhazia and Chechnya===
Russian military intelligence helped recruit, arm and organise volunteers from across the [[North Caucasus]] to fight alongside Abkhaz separatists in the [[War in Abkhazia (1992–1993)]]. The volunteers were organised under the banner of the [[Confederation of Mountain Peoples of the Caucasus]], and included [[Shamil Basayev]], [[Ruslan Gelayev]] and Umalt Deshayev.<ref name="PragueWatchdog-2008">{{cite news |last1=Akhmadov |first1=Ramzan |title=Chechens sympathize with Georgia |url=https://www.watchdog.cz/?show=000000-000004-000002-000053&lang=1 |access-date=3 April 2025 |publisher=Prague Watchdog |date=20 August 2008 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110310225806/https://www.watchdog.cz/?show=000000-000004-000002-000053&lang=1 |archive-date=10 March 2011}}</ref> The contingent's leader, [[Musa Shanibov]], incited [[Ethnic cleansing of Georgians in Abkhazia|ethnic violence against Georgians in Abkhazia]].

The year after the Abkhazia war concluded, the [[First Chechen War]] begun, and many of the men who had volunteered in Abkhazia took up arms against Russia. Besayev, Gelayev and Deshayev each led contingents made up of Chechen former volunteers, who were known as "Abkhaz battalions," due to their history. They helped to defeat Russia during that war, before suffering a defeat themselves in the [[Second Chechen War]]. 

Gelayev sought refuge in Georgian territory during 2001-2002. In 2001 he led an assault on separatist Abkhazia on behalf of Georgian interests, sometimes referred to as the [[2001 Kodori crisis|Kodori crisis]], thus fighting against the same forces whom he had fought alongside a decade earlier. Gelayev's presence in Georgia was the proximate cause of the [[Pankisi Gorge crisis]]. 

Many Chechen volunteers subsequently regretted their prior involvement in the Abkhazia war.<ref name="PragueWatchdog-2008" /> All three of the Chechen military leaders that emerged from the volunteer units created by Russia were ultimately killed by Russia itself. 

===Yevno Azef and Russian Imperial secret police===
{{Unreferenced section|date=January 2022}}
Russian socialist revolutionary [[Yevno Azef]], as a paid police informant, provided the Russian secret-police [[Okhrana]] with information to allow them to arrest an influential member of the [[Socialist Revolutionary Party]]. After the arrest, Azef assumed the vacant position and organized assassinations, including those of the director of Imperial Russia's police and later Minister of the Interior [[Vyacheslav von Plehve|Vyacheslav Plehve]] (1904) and [[Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich of Russia|Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich]], the Tsar's uncle (1905). By 1908, Azef was playing the double role of a revolutionary assassin and police spy who received 1000 rubles a month from the authorities.

=== Soviet disinformation blowback ===
Soviet intelligence, as part of [[active measures]], frequently spread [[disinformation]] to distort their adversaries' decision-making. However, sometimes this information filtered back through the KGB's own contacts, leading to distorted reports.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Garthoff|first=Raymond L.|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=OOpqCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA48|title=Soviet Leaders and Intelligence: Assessing the American Adversary during the Cold War|date=2015-08-15|publisher=Georgetown University Press|isbn=978-1-62616-230-3|pages=48|language=en}}</ref>  [[Lawrence Martin-Bittman|Lawrence Bittman]] also addressed Soviet intelligence blowback in ''[[The KGB and Soviet Disinformation]]'', stating that "There are, of course, instances in which the operator is partially or completely exposed and subjected to countermeasures taken by the government of the target country."<ref name="bittman1985">{{citation|last=Bittman|first=Ladislav|title=The KGB and Soviet Disinformation: An Insider's View|pages=49–52|year=1985|publisher=Pergamon-Brassey's|isbn=978-0-08-031572-0}}</ref>

==See also==
{{Wiktionary|blowback}}
* [[Blowback (podcast)]]
* [[Allegations of CIA assistance to Osama bin Laden]]
* [[Boomerang effect (psychology)]]
* [[French Connection]]
* [[Guatemalan Civil War]]
* [[Office of Public Diplomacy]]
* [[Plausible deniability]]
* [[Reagan Doctrine]]
* [[Unintended consequences]]
* [[Security dilemma]]
* [[Israeli support for Hamas]]
* [[Civilian casualties from the United States drone strikes]]
* [[Camp Bucca]]
* [[Abu Ghraib torture and prisoner abuse]]

===People===
* [[Chalmers Johnson]]
* [[João Goulart]]
* [[Mohammad Mosaddeq]]
* [[Qasem Soleimani]]

==References==
* ''Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire'', by [[Chalmers Johnson]], {{ISBN|0-8050-6239-4}}
{{Reflist|1}}

[[Category:Intelligence operations]]
[[Category:Revenge]]