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Blowback is a term originating from within the
Central Intelligence Agency The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gathering, processing, ...
, explaining the
unintended consequence In the social sciences, unintended consequences (sometimes unanticipated consequences or unforeseen consequences) are outcomes of a purposeful action that are not intended or foreseen. The term was popularised in the twentieth century by Ameri ...
and unwanted side-effects of a
covert operation A covert operation is a military operation intended to conceal the identity of (or allow plausible deniability by) the party that instigated the operation. Covert operations should not be confused with clandestine operations, which are perform ...
. To the civilians suffering the blowback of covert operations, the effect typically manifests itself as "random" acts of
political violence Political violence is violence which is perpetrated in order to achieve political goals. It can include violence which is used by a state against other states ( war), violence which is used by a state against civilians and non-state actors (for ...
without a discernible, direct cause; because the public—in whose name the
intelligence agency An intelligence agency is a government agency responsible for the collection, analysis, and exploitation of information in support of law enforcement, national security, military, public safety, and foreign policy objectives. Means of inf ...
acted—are unaware of the effected secret attacks that ''provoked revenge'' (counter-attack) against them.


Etymology

Originally, ''blowback'' was
CIA The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gathering, processing, ...
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 Osama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden (10 March 1957 – 2 May 2011) was a Saudi-born extremist militant who founded al-Qaeda and served as its leader from 1988 until his death in 2011. Ideologically a pan-Islamist, his group is designated ...
) 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 The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gathering, processing, ...
); and
banana republic In political science, the term banana republic describes a politically unstable country with an economy dependent upon the export of natural resources. In 1904, the American author O. Henry coined the term to describe Honduras and neighboring c ...
junta Junta may refer to: Government and military * Junta (governing body) (from Spanish), the name of various historical and current governments and governing institutions, including civil ones ** Military junta, one form of junta, government led by a ...
s (see
Salvadoran Civil War The Salvadoran Civil War ( es, guerra civil de El Salvador) was a twelve year period of civil war in El Salvador that was fought between the government of El Salvador and the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN), a coalition or ...
) who kill American
reporter A journalist is an individual that collects/gathers information in form of text, audio, or pictures, processes them into a news-worthy form, and disseminates it to the public. The act or process mainly done by the journalist is called journalism ...
s or
nun A nun is a woman who vows to dedicate her life to religious service, typically living under vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience in the enclosure of a monastery or convent.''The Oxford English Dictionary'', vol. X, page 599. The term is o ...
s (e.g. Dorothy Kazel). In formal print usage, the term ''blowback'' first appeared in the ''Clandestine Service History—Overthrow of Premier Mossadeq of
Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...
—November 1952–August 1953'', the CIA's internal history of the
1953 Iranian coup d'état The 1953 Iranian coup d'état, known in Iran as the 28 Mordad coup d'état ( fa, کودتای ۲۸ مرداد), was the overthrow of the democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh in favor of strengthening the monarchical rule of ...
, sponsored by the American and British governments, which was published in March 1954. Blowback from this operation would indeed occur with the
Iranian Revolution The Iranian Revolution ( fa, انقلاب ایران, Enqelâb-e Irân, ), also known as the Islamic Revolution ( fa, انقلاب اسلامی, Enqelâb-e Eslâmī), was a series of events that culminated in the overthrow of the Pahlavi dyna ...
and the
Iran hostage crisis On November 4, 1979, 52 United States diplomats and citizens were held hostage after a group of militarized Iranian college students belonging to the Muslim Student Followers of the Imam's Line, who supported the Iranian Revolution, took over ...
. Recent accounts of how blowback functioned in the
War on Terror The war on terror, officially the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT), is an ongoing international counterterrorism military campaign initiated by the United States following the September 11 attacks. The main targets of the campaign are militant ...
relation to US and UK intelligence and
defense Defense or defence may refer to: Tactical, martial, and political acts or groups * Defense (military), forces primarily intended for warfare * Civil defense, the organizing of civilians to deal with emergencies or enemy attacks * Defense indus ...
propaganda Propaganda is communication that is primarily used to influence or persuade an audience to further an agenda, which may not be objective and may be selectively presenting facts to encourage a particular synthesis or perception, or using loaded ...
and became an important issue in a 21st Century
media Media may refer to: Communication * Media (communication), tools used to deliver information or data ** Advertising media, various media, content, buying and placement for advertising ** Broadcast media, communications delivered over mass e ...
environment Environment most often refers to: __NOTOC__ * Natural environment, all living and non-living things occurring naturally * Biophysical environment, the physical and biological factors along with their chemical interactions that affect an organism or ...
are discussed by
Emma Briant Emma L. Briant (born 1979) is a British scholar and academic researcher on media, contemporary propaganda, surveillance and information warfare who was involved in exposing the Facebook–Cambridge Analytica data scandal concerning data misuse ...
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.


Examples


Nicaragua and Iran-Contra

In the 1980s, 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 The Contras were the various U.S.-backed and funded right-wing rebel groups that were active from 1979 to 1990 in opposition to the Marxist Sandinista Junta of National Reconstruction Government in Nicaragua, which came to power in 1979 foll ...
against the left-wing
Sandinista The Sandinista National Liberation Front ( es, Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional, FSLN) is a socialist political party in Nicaragua. Its members are called Sandinistas () in both English and Spanish. The party is named after Augusto C� ...
government of
Nicaragua Nicaragua (; ), officially the Republic of Nicaragua (), is the largest country in Central America, bordered by Honduras to the north, the Caribbean to the east, Costa Rica to the south, and the Pacific Ocean to the west. Managua is the coun ...
, which led to the
Iran–Contra Affair The Iran–Contra affair ( fa, ماجرای ایران-کنترا, es, Caso Irán–Contra), often referred to as the Iran–Contra scandal, the McFarlane affair (in Iran), or simply Iran–Contra, was a political scandal in the United States ...
, 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. Moreover, in the case of Nicaragua v. United States, the
International Court of Justice The International Court of Justice (ICJ; french: Cour internationale de justice, links=no; ), sometimes known as the World Court, is one of the six principal organs of the United Nations (UN). It settles disputes between states in accordan ...
ruled against the United States' secret military attacks against Sandinista Nicaragua, because the countries were not formally at war. Reagan Doctrine advocates, such as the
Heritage Foundation The Heritage Foundation (abbreviated to Heritage) is an American conservative think tank based in Washington, D.C. that is primarily geared toward public policy. The foundation took a leading role in the conservative movement during the preside ...
, argued that support for anti-Communists would topple Communist régimes without retaliatory consequences to the United States and help win the global
Cold War The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because t ...
.


Afghanistan and Al Qaeda

Examples of blowback include the CIA's financing and support for Afghan insurgents to fight an anti-Communist proxy guerilla war against the
USSR The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nati ...
in
Afghanistan Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,; prs, امارت اسلامی افغانستان is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. Referred to as the Heart of Asia, it is borde ...
; some of the beneficiaries of this CIA support may have joined
al-Qaeda Al-Qaeda (; , ) is an Islamic extremist organization composed of Salafist jihadists. Its members are mostly composed of Arabs, but also include other peoples. Al-Qaeda has mounted attacks on civilian and military targets in various countr ...
's terrorist campaign against the United States.


Syria and ISIS

During the Syrian Civil War, United States and
Saudi Arabia Saudi Arabia, officially the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), is a country in Western Asia. It covers the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula, and has a land area of about , making it the fifth-largest country in Asia, the second-largest in the Ara ...
supported and aided anti-
Assad Asad ( ar, أسد), sometimes written as Assad, is an Arabic male given name literally meaning " lion". It is used in nicknames such as ''Asad Allāh'', one of the by-names for Ali ibn Abi Talib. People Among prominent people named ''Asad'', ...
armed groups. Some of those groups later shifted loyalty to
ISIS Isis (; ''Ēse''; ; Meroitic: ''Wos'' 'a''or ''Wusa''; Phoenician: 𐤀𐤎, romanized: ʾs) was a major goddess in ancient Egyptian religion whose worship spread throughout the Greco-Roman world. Isis was first mentioned in the Old Kin ...
.


Yevno Azef and Russian Imperial secret police

Russian socialist revolutionary Yevno Azef, as a paid police informant, provided the Russian secret-police
Okhrana The Department for Protecting the Public Security and Order (russian: Отделение по охранению общественной безопасности и порядка), usually called Guard Department ( rus, Охранное отд ...
with information to allow them to arrest an influential member of the
Socialist Revolutionary Party The Socialist Revolutionary Party, or the Party of Socialist-Revolutionaries (the SRs, , or Esers, russian: эсеры, translit=esery, label=none; russian: Партия социалистов-революционеров, ), was a major politi ...
. 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 Plehve (1904) and
Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich of Russia (''Сергей Александрович''; 11 May 1857 – 17 February 1905) was the fifth son and seventh child of Emperor Alexander II of Russia. He was an influential figure during the reigns of hi ...
, 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 Active measures (russian: активные мероприятия, translit=aktivnye meropriyatiya) is political warfare conducted by the Soviet or Russian government since the 1920s. It includes offensive programs such as espionage, propagand ...
, frequently spread
disinformation Disinformation is false information deliberately spread to deceive people. It is sometimes confused with misinformation, which is false information but is not deliberate. The English word ''disinformation'' comes from the application of the ...
to distort their adversaries' decision-making. However, sometimes this information filtered back through the KGB's own contacts, leading to distorted reports. Lawrence Bittman also addressed Soviet intelligence blowback in ''
The KGB and Soviet Disinformation ''The KGB and Soviet Disinformation: An Insider's View'' is a 1983 non-fiction book by Lawrence Martin-Bittman (then known as Ladislav Bittman), a former intelligence officer specializing in disinformation for the Czech Intelligence Service and ...
'', 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."


See also

*
Allegations of CIA assistance to Osama bin Laden Some sources have alleged that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) had ties with Osama Bin Laden's al-Qaeda and its " Afghan Arab" fighters when it armed Mujahideen groups to fight the Soviet Union during the Soviet–Afghan War. About the same t ...
*
Boomerang effect (psychology) In social psychology, the boomerang effect, also known as " reactance", refers to the unintended consequences of an attempt to persuade resulting in the adoption of an opposing position instead. It is sometimes also referred to "the theory of psyc ...
* French Connection *
Guatemalan Civil War The Guatemalan Civil War was a civil war in Guatemala fought from 1960 to 1996 between the government of Guatemala and various leftist rebel groups. The government forces have been condemned for committing genocide against the Maya population of ...
*
Office of Public Diplomacy The Office of Public Diplomacy for Latin America and the Caribbean (S/LPD or ARA/LPD) was an intra-agency propaganda organization established in the United States during the administration of Ronald Reagan. It was founded and managed by the Cuban- ...
*
Plausible deniability Plausible deniability is the ability of people, typically senior officials in a formal or informal chain of command, to denial, deny knowledge of or responsibility for any damnable actions committed by members of their organizational hierarchy. Th ...
* Reagan Doctrine *
Unintended consequences In the social sciences, unintended consequences (sometimes unanticipated consequences or unforeseen consequences) are outcomes of a purposeful action that are not intended or foreseen. The term was popularised in the twentieth century by Ameri ...


People

*
Chalmers Johnson Chalmers Ashby Johnson (August 6, 1931 – November 20, 2010) was an American political scientist specializing in comparative politics, and professor emeritus of the University of California, San Diego. He served in the Korean War, was a consu ...
*
João Goulart João Belchior Marques Goulart (1 March 1919 – 6 December 1976), commonly known as Jango, was a Brazilian politician who served as the 24th president of Brazil until a military coup d'état deposed him on 1 April 1964. He was considered the ...
* Mohammad Mosaddeq *
Qasem Soleimani Qasem Soleimani ( fa, قاسم سلیمانی, ; 11 March 19573January 2020) was an Iranian military officer who served in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). From 1998 until his assassination in 2020, he was the commander of the Qu ...


References

* ''Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire'', by
Chalmers Johnson Chalmers Ashby Johnson (August 6, 1931 – November 20, 2010) was an American political scientist specializing in comparative politics, and professor emeritus of the University of California, San Diego. He served in the Korean War, was a consu ...
, {{Reflist, 1 Intelligence operations Revenge