Is sunlight the best counterintelligence technique? the effectiveness of covert operation exposure in blunting the Russian intervention in the 2020 U.S. election
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引用次数: 1
Abstract
ABSTRACT In runup to 2020 U.S. elections U.S. intelligence agencies tried to prevent Russian covert operations from affecting the results. Various methods were used including the exposure of detected covert Russian activities. The question of the actual effects of this counterintelligence operation however remains open. This study examines the effects of the exposure strategy on target public using a novel method. I find strong evidence that U.S. intelligence agencies efforts to expose the Russian hand succeeded in blunting the effects of the targeted covert activities. This indicates that the exposure counterintelligence strategy is a potent tool for defanging covert foreign election interference/partisan electoral interventions.
期刊介绍:
Intelligence has never played a more prominent role in international politics than it does now in the early years of the twenty-first century. National intelligence services are larger than ever, and they are more transparent in their activities in the policy making of democratic nations. Intelligence and National Security is widely regarded as the world''s leading scholarly journal focused on the role of intelligence and secretive agencies in international relations. It examines this aspect of national security from a variety of perspectives and academic disciplines, with insightful articles research and written by leading experts based around the globe. Among the topics covered in the journal are: • the historical development of intelligence agencies • representations of intelligence in popular culture • public understandings and expectations related to intelligence • intelligence and ethics • intelligence collection and analysis • covert action and counterintelligence • privacy and intelligence accountability • the outsourcing of intelligence operations • the role of politics in intelligence activities • international intelligence cooperation and burden-sharing • the relationships among intelligence agencies, military organizations, and civilian policy departments. Authors for Intelligence and National Security come from a range of disciplines, including international affairs, history, sociology, political science, law, anthropology, philosophy, medicine, statistics, psychology, bio-sciences, and mathematics. These perspectives are regularly augmented by research submitted from current and former intelligence practitioners in several different nations. Each issue features a rich menu of articles about the uses (and occasional misuses) of intelligence, supplemented from time to time with special forums on current intelligence issues and interviews with leading intelligence officials.