It may be recalled that when Imran Khan’s government was
removed through ‘non-confidence vote’ he openly alleged that the United States
was behind this. Although, the US administration categorically denies having
played any role, many in Pakistan don’t accept the denials.
This morning I was lucky enough to find an article an
article by by Lindsey A. O'Rourke published in The Washington Post as back
as December 23, 2016 which stated that the United States tried to change governments
of other countries 72 times during the Cold War era.
The CIA has concluded with “high confidence” that
Russia intervened covertly during the presidential election to promote Donald
Trump’s candidacy. They based this assessment on the discovery that
Russian security agencies had hacked the Republican National Committee, the
Democratic National Committee and the Hillary Clinton campaign — and had
released selected Democratic documents to WikiLeaks to undermine Clinton’s
candidacy.
However, it must be remembered that The US has a long
history of hacking other democracies. If true, Russia’s actions are reminiscent
of Cold War covert political warfare, with an Internet-era twist. Following are
six key things the research uncovered about those efforts.
Obviously, studying covert interventions is tough. By
definition, the operations are designed so that the intervening state can
plausibly deny it was involved, deflecting blame onto other actors. It’s
impossible to get reliable cross-national data, given how widely countries vary
in their rules about government transparency and freedom of the press. Add in
flourishing conspiracy theories, and it can be hard to separate historical fact
from fiction.
To tackle these problems, the writer has spent the past
several years investigating allegations of US-backed covert regime changes
during the Cold War. She has done so by going through relevant documents from
the National Archives, National Security Archive and presidential libraries.
Fortunately, the combination of the US government’s declassification rules,
congressional inquiries and journalistic coverage has revealed a great deal
about these operations.
1. From
1947 to 1989, the United States tried to change other governments in other
countries 72 times
That’s a remarkable number. It includes 66 covert operations
and six overt ones. These 72 US operations were during the Cold War —
meaning that, in most cases, the Soviet Union was covertly supporting anti-US
forces on the other side. However, a look at these US actions allows us to
survey the covert activities of a major power, so we can glean insight into
such interventions’ causes and consequences.
2. Most
covert efforts to replace another country’s government failed
During the Cold War, for instance, 26 of the United States’
covert operations successfully brought a US-backed government to power; the
remaining 40 failed.
Success depended in large part on the choice of covert
tactics. Not a single US-backed assassination plot during this time actually
killed their intended target, although two foreign leaders — South Vietnam’s
Ngo Dinh Diem and the Dominican Republic’s Rafael Trujillo — were killed by
foreign intermediaries without Washington’s blessing during US-backed coups.
Similarly, covert actions to support militant groups trying
to topple a foreign regime nearly always failed. Of 36 attempts, only
five overthrew their targets. Sponsoring coups was more successful;
nine out of 14 attempted coups put the US-backed leaders in power.
3.
Meddling in foreign elections is the most successful covert tactic
The author found 16 cases in which Washington sought to
influence foreign elections by covertly funding, advising and spreading
propaganda for its preferred candidates, often doing so beyond a single election
cycle. Of these, the US-backed parties won their elections 75% of the time.
Of course, it is impossible to say whether the US-supported
candidates would have won their elections without the covert assistance; many
were leading in the polls before the US intervention. However, as the CIA’s
head of the Directorate of Intelligence, Ray S. Cline once put it, the key to a
successful covert regime change is “supplying just the right bit of marginal
assistance in the right way at the right time.”
In an election where Clinton won the popular vote by
2.86 million but lost the electoral college, thanks to 77,744 voters
in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania.
It’s impossible to say for sure, but the numbers were
certainly close. If Clinton had replicated Obama’s 2012 turnout in those three
swing states, she would have won them by more than half a million votes. Even
if she had been able to convert just one percent of these states’ Trump
voters, she would have won by a combined 55,000 votes.
The Clinton campaign undoubtedly had many strikes against
it: high unfavorability ratings, inaccurate polling, FBI Director
James B. Comey’s letter and strategic mishaps. Still, Russia’s covert
campaign probably compounded these problems. Thanks to WikiLeaks’s slow trickle
of hacked emails, the news cycle throughout October was flooded with embarrassing
anti-Clinton stories, preventing her from building momentum after the debates.
4.
Regime changes rarely work out as the intervening states expect
A Trump presidency might not be as much of a boon for
Russia as hoped or feared. Clinton warned in the third presidential debate
that Putin “would rather have a puppet as president of the United
States.”
However, as the writer showed in a recent International
Security article with Alexander Downes, leaders installed via regime
change generally don’t act as puppets for long. Once in power, the new leaders
find that acting at their foreign backers’ behest brings significant domestic
opposition. They therefore tend to moderate their policies or turn against the
foreign backer completely. In fact, there are already reports that
the Kremlin is feeling “buyer’s remorse” over Trump’s victory, given his
unpredictability.
5.
Covert regime change can devastate the target countries
Author’s research found that after a nation’s government was
toppled, it was less democratic and more likely to suffer civil war, domestic
instability and mass killing, at the very least, citizens lost faith in their
governments.
Even if Russia didn’t make the difference in electing Trump,
it successfully undermined confidence in US political institutions and
news media.
As historian Timothy Snyder pointed out, “If
democratic procedures start to seem shambolic, then democratic ideas will seem
questionable as well. And so America would become more like Russia, which is
the general idea. If Trump wins, Russia wins. But if Trump loses and people
doubt the outcome, Russia also wins.”
6. The
best antidote to subterfuge is transparency
States intervene covertly so that they don’t have to be held
accountable for their actions. Amid reports that Russian hackers have been
emboldened by the success of the DNC hack, exposing Moscow’s hand is the
first step toward deterring future attacks against the United States and upcoming
elections in Germany, France and the Netherlands. It may also be the best way
to dispel disinformation and restore faith in US democratic institutions at a
time when 55% of Americans say they are troubled by Russian interference
into the election,
The United States is beginning this effort. Congress
has announced bipartisan investigations and Obama ordered a comprehensive
report on covert foreign interference into US presidential elections going
back to the 2008 election.
Given how serious these allegations are, and especially
considering that President-elect Trump rejects the intelligence
community’s consensus conclusion, releasing these reports publicly before
the inauguration could help set US democracy right.
