U.S. SPECIAL FORCES SCHOOL PUBLISHES NEW GUIDE FOR OVERTHROWING FOREIGN GOVERNMENTS

BY TOM O'CONNOR ON 5/8/19 AT 3:06 PM EDT

The official school of the United States' Special Operations Command has published a new paper detailing a decades-long history of Pentagon-backed interference around the world, hoping to provide insight on how best to approach such efforts in the present and future.

The 250-page study, "Support to Resistance: Strategic Purpose and Effectiveness," was compiled by Army Special Forces veteran Will Irwin and published earlier this week by the official Joint Special Operations University, where he was a resident senior fellow. Though the report notes that its views "are entirely those of the author," its findings present a comprehensive look at how the U.S. has supported efforts to pressure, undermine and overthrow foreign governments.

The report includes some 47 case studies spanning from 1941 to 2003, detailing a legacy of mixed results that included assisting partisans against the Axis Power satellites during World War II, bolstering anti-communist forces throughout the Cold War and taking on post-9/11 adversaries in Afghanistan and Iraq. The numerous Washington-orchestrated coups of the past 70 years were "not included in this study as they did not involve legitimate resistance movements."

"This work will serve as a benchmark reference on resistance movements for the benefit of the special operations community and its civilian leadership," the report reads.

The cases were broken down into three major support to resistance (STR) categories: disruption, coercion and regime change. The report found that "from 1940 to the present, nearly 70 percent of STR operations were conducted for disruptive purposes," while "non-disruptive cases were about equally divided between coercion and overthrow."

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