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Blowback is theunintended consequences and unwanted side-effects of acovert operation. To the civilians suffering the blowback of covert operations, the effect typically manifests itself as "random" acts ofpolitical violence without a discernible, direct cause; because the public—in whose name theintelligence agency acted—are unaware of the effected secret attacks thatprovoked revenge (counter-attack) against them.[1]
Originally,blowback wasCIA internal coinage denoting the unintended, harmful consequences—to friendly populations and military forces—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 (seeCIA and Contras cocaine trafficking in the US); andbanana republicjuntas (seeSalvadoran Civil War) who kill Americanreporters ornuns (e.g.Dorothy Kazel).[2]
In formal print usage, the termblowback first appeared in theClandestine Service History—Overthrow ofPremier Mossadeq ofIran—November 1952–August 1953, the CIA's internal history of the1953 Iranian coup d'état, sponsored by the American and British governments, which was published in March 1954.[3][4] Blowback from this operation would indeed occur with theIranian Revolution and theIran hostage crisis. Recent accounts of how blowback functioned in theWar on Terror relation to US and UK intelligence anddefensepropaganda and became an important issue in a 21st Centurymediaenvironment are discussed byEmma Briant in her bookPropaganda and Counter-terrorism which presents first-hand accounts and discussions of deliberate and unintended consequences of blowback, oversight, and impacts for the public.[5][6]
In the 1980s, the blowback was a central theme in the legal and political debates about the efficacy of theReagan Doctrine, which advocated publicand secret support of anti-Communist counter-revolutionaries. For example, by secretly funding the secret war of the militarily-defeated, right-wingContras against the left-wingSandinista government ofNicaragua, which led to theIran–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.[7] Moreover, in the case ofNicaragua v. United States, theInternational 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, includingThe Heritage Foundation, argued that support for anti-Communists would topple Communistrégimes without retaliatory consequences to the United States and help win the globalCold War.[citation needed]
Examples of blowback include the CIA'sfinancing and support for Afghan insurgents to fight an anti-Communist proxy guerilla war against theUSSR inAfghanistan; some of the beneficiaries of this CIA support may have joinedal-Qaeda's terrorist campaign against the United States.[8]
During theSyrian Civil War, the United States andSaudi Arabia supported and aided anti-Assad armed groups.[9][10] Some of those groups later shifted loyalty toISIS.[11]
Russian military intelligence helped recruit, arm and organise volunteers from across theNorth Caucasus to fight alongside Abkhaz separatists in theWar in Abkhazia (1992–1993). The volunteers were organised under the banner of theConfederation of Mountain Peoples of the Caucasus, and includedShamil Basayev,Ruslan Gelayev and Umalt Deshayev.[12] The contingent's leader,Musa Shanibov, incitedethnic violence against Georgians in Abkhazia.
The year after the Abkhazia war concluded, theFirst 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 theSecond 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 theKodori 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 thePankisi Gorge crisis.
Many Chechen volunteers subsequently regretted their prior involvement in the Abkhazia war.[12] All three of the Chechen military leaders that emerged from the volunteer units created by Russia were ultimately killed by Russia itself.
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Russian socialist revolutionaryYevno Azef, as a paid police informant, provided the Russian secret-policeOkhrana with information to allow them to arrest an influential member of theSocialist 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 InteriorVyacheslav Plehve (1904) andGrand 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 intelligence, as part ofactive measures, frequently spreaddisinformation to distort their adversaries' decision-making. However, sometimes this information filtered back through the KGB's own contacts, leading to distorted reports.[13]Lawrence Bittman also addressed Soviet intelligence blowback inThe 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."[14]
